The Opposite of Loneliness
by stripedcow
Summary: She had nothing more to lose. He had everything until he lost it all. She's determined to brighten his days, but everyday she pushes him further back into the light her world somehow becomes just a little darker. High school AU. CaptainSwan
1. This City Has Ten Million Souls

**Disclaimer: I mean, honestly...**

 **Triggers: Some suicidal ideation**

 **This City Has Ten Million Souls**

Some of the happiest looking people in the world are probably also the loneliest. The intensity of their enthusiasm, the length of their smiles, the depth of their feigned joy mirrors the true extent of their loneliness. They are so often devoid of an outlet for their emotions that when something is able to stir any semblance of feeling it is as if they give into everything all at once in fear that it will be the last time, the last opportunity to lose themselves in a moment.

Killian Jones didn't realize he had been rereading page 20 for the past five minutes until a loud laugh from the other side of the room shook him from his reverie. Blonde hair tousled lightly in the air as another hiss of laughter unceremoniously erupted from the opposite corner. He would never admit it to anyone, but he actually found Emma Swan rather enchanting at times. His friends (are they still his friends?) would probably go off about how "fucking weird" she was and how she was "so anorexic that she could pass for a Holocaust survivor" before one of them would retell that same story about what she supposedly did in middle school that everyone already knows, but will still sit in silence to hear retold. And although 90% of the time they're hidden behind her oversized glasses, there was something magical about how the green in her eyes sparkled and the seemingly never fading optimism that lived behind them. Despite all the horrifying things that have supposedly happened to her, despite all the shit that people say about her, she was able to smile and giggle through it all and there was something very beautiful about that.

The rest of the class shifted noisily as they turned to not so subtly shoot glares at the mousy blonde still oblivious to the attention she'd caused.

"How are you laughing at anything that's happening in this book?" Ariel angrily waved her copy of The Handmaid's Tale in the air as if by doing so she could shake out all of the story's tragedies, horrors, and injustices and use them to physically wipe the grin off of Emma Swan's face.

"Seriously, how messed up are you anyway." Tink swiveled dramatically in her seat before quietly mumbling the words "foster care freak" as she returned to her reading.

Killian watched Emma look up and around, the room filling with exaggerated exasperated sighs and almost theatrical groans of frustration. They acted as if she forcibly dragged them from some magical reading haze when in reality they were all looking for an excuse to distract themselves from a novel they neither understood nor appreciated. The whole time, her smile never faltered. It's almost unnatural in its tenacity.

"That's enough." Mr. Gold, no longer attempting to restrain his frustration with the unwelcome noises beginning to simmer in his classroom, shot pointed looks at Ariel and Tink, a silent warning to both of them that it was his responsibility to police any wrongdoing in his class.

"Ms. Swan, I would so appreciate it if next time you would be so kind to keep your reactions to yourself." There is an almost imperceptible softening of his expression as the soft lilt of the final f rolled off his tongue.

The two maintained eye contact just long enough to suggest something more than a simple reprimand. She nodded solemnly before returning to her book, her steady expression deftly concealing the embarrassment she must have felt as she pushed her glasses up just in time to hide the darkening in her eyes.

To Killian's disappointment, there were no more interruptions during English class. The occasional sound of pages being flipped sliced through the silence like a knife, the sound echoing through the air before reverberating in his ear. Each frantic pencil scratch seemed to get sharper and sharper until the sounds morphed into a screech that vibrated through his core. Metal was crunching around him and he was trying to grasp onto something, anything, but everything around him was suddenly too hot to touch. Crimson stickiness ran through his hands as he reached for his brother, who turned into ash and slipped through the cracks, dissolving into dark nothingness. The wail of sirens cut through the air as he tried trying to scream, but his mouth filled with cotton. Each lungful of air was becoming harder and hotter and God it was just so hot and everything was just too-

"Killian, right?" The voice was like a small stream cutting through his body, cooling it as it smoothly glided through his burning soul, touching all the corners in such a way that the fire was contained to nothing more than dancing flames. He heard his name again, a little louder, a little stronger, but just as sweet and restorative as the heat dissipated even more. "You're going to be late to your next class." Soft hands, gently coaxing him to close the book, danced on his arm. Delicate fingers adorned with various knuckle rings swim into his line of vision. He took two deep breaths to steady his breathing before looking up.

"For what it's worth, the book gets a lot better. The first 20 pages is a total drag. In any case, you better head out. Wouldn't want to be seen chatting with me for too long." That trademark smile is still etched on her face, not a hint of self-deprecation lingering in her final statement.

"Right, of course. I mean… I didn't mean" His face flushed with embarrassment as he attempts to make a hasty escape.

"I know what you meant."

"Right, of course you did."

She closed with a final giggle and a "right" before floating through the door, her old sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor.

The halls of Storybrooke High, usually buzzing with untethered hormones, were comfortably quiet the minute before the late bell rings. Contrary to popular belief, most people didn't actually want to be late to class (the detentions with Gold aren't worth it) and those who have decided to skip were already halfway down the football field.

"Oie, Jones. Jones!" Will Scarlet's barreled down the opposite end of the English wing like a newborn bull, heavy footsteps shaking the ground beneath him, bag swinging wildly and assaulting the metal lockers on either side.

"Scarlet." Killian, still reeling from his panic attack in English, breathed the name out like a curse through gritted teeth.

"Didn't you hear?"

"Obviously not, mate." He tried to sound curious, but the irritation he was feeling manages to squeeze through, the final t hitting his teeth harshly.

"Jeez bro, calm down. It's good news. Great news! I just ran into coach and he said that you got chosen as regional QB!"

A month ago Killian Jones would have been ecstatic. Regional quarter back meant being in the running for player of the year, which not only meant college scholarships but it would also firmly solidify his spot in high school royalty (not that his current popularity status was an issue).

"We're celebrating you and your kick assness tonight. No, shut up. Before you even try to say no. We're going to Granny's Diner tonight and Ruby Lucas is going to wear that slutty number she always wears and sneak us beers and shots in those to go cups like she did after the playoff game. Afterwards you and Milah are going to make out in your truck as usual while Belle and I pretend we don't like each other, but secretly both want to bone super hard and that's final. It'll be awesome. You need to unwind, especially after…"

Will's rant was dizzying in its enthusiasm. His words muddled together until they eventually fused, becoming nothing more than static thrown carelessly in the ether. He was too excited, too happy, too light and free and too fucking happy. The vapidness of it all made Killian angry. The girls, the drinking, the celebrating of some stupid shitty title that was more of a popularity contest than a merit award pissed him off. Everything pissed him off now, but he couldn't tell him that. He wondered what Will would do if he just told him to fuck off. He wondered what they would all do if they knew.

But they don't know. They can't. So he pushed out the most enthusiastic smile he could muster. "Sure! That sounds great."

"Hell. Fucking. Yes! Awesome! Don't even worry, leave all the planning to me. You just need to get your ass to Granny's at 7 tonight. Any special wardrobe requests you'd like me to pass on to the always charming Milah Cassidy?"

The first time Killian Jones kissed Milah Cassidy was two years ago during the homecoming game freshman year. She was dating some big, hulking mess of a senior, but Killian Jones didn't care. He had just helped score the winning touchdown (as a freshman). In high school world, that was the equivalent of climbing a beanstalk, slaying a dragon, killing a giant, and stealing all of the riches of the world. She was one of the cheerleaders who ran over to him first. It had been raining during the final quarter and her hair was tousled and damp. Like all hot girls, her smile was seductively muted. She was perfect and by then he had her memorized. He engulfed her in what was meant to be a simple hug, but found himself twirling her in the air in celebration. Someone from the sidelines dumped a cooler of yellow Gatorade on them and suddenly everyone was trying to catch stray droplets of the sugary drink. Somewhere in all of that Killian's tongue found itself in Milah's mouth.

Around them there was the noise of shouting and then something breaking. Celebration sounds. Her hands found their way under his uniform. He remembered how cool they were. There was more shouting and some wolf whistles before he felt the hearty claps of Will, Arthur, and Jefferson on his back. It was exactly as how he imagined it would be.

Snapping out of the memory, Killian found himself wishing he had a photograph of his face in that exact instant so he could remember himself the way he used to be.

"Just tell her whatever she's comfortable in. Anyway, thanks for planning this tonight. I've got to run though. I have approximately 15 seconds to get to chemistry before Whale kills me."

"Like coach would let Dr. Frankenstein give you detention after all of this."

"I guess, but still." Knowing better than to push, Will simply shrugged before bulldozing down the hall, presumably to find the rest of the football crew.

Killian groaned as the final late bell shrieked just as Will disappeared around the corner. There was no use in hurrying now.

He decided to stroll through the art corridor. No one, not even Milah, knew, but he actually liked looking at the paintings. Most of them were horrendous, half assed shitty attempts at a fruit basket from kids who wanted an easy A, but every once in awhile there was something that made him want to stop and stare forever. He dragged his fingers across the cloth canvasses, a guilty pleasure of his as he feels the hills and valleys created by the layers of paint, before he stops.

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream: An Homage  
by Emma Swan

From afar, it looked like nothing more than a black canvass. Upon closer inspection, he saw the sinister lines that crossed each other in rage and horror. A tree branch, or was it a hand, seemed to leap from the page, an attempt to not only grab him, but also trap him in whatever terror lay beneath the dark surface. It was as if the contrasts of chiaroscuro had somehow combined with the movement of impressionism to create something hauntingly beautiful. Every turn of the head revealed another layer, another creature, another terrifying memory. He could spend the whole day there, tilting and turning his head, contorting his body, squinting his eyes in his quest to discover every aspect of the painting.

"Mr. Jones. What brings you down this way?" Mr. Hopper's tranquil voice floated through the air, breaking the painting's spell.

"I… um… this painting is…" Hopper laughed.

"I know the feeling. I had it hung up in my living room for hours when I was trying to grade it. It's something, and while I sympathize with your fascination with it, you know you can't be in the hall without a pass. Where are you supposed to be?"

"Chemistry with Whale upstairs. I guess I just got… uh… distracted on my way up."

"Tell you what, I'll write you a pass to chemistry if you promise to come to a one-on-one meeting tomorrow morning before school. You're long overdue for one."

The latest round of budget cuts the school board made it so Storybrooke High almost lost the art program, but Hopper, the guidance counselor, offered to double as both the GC and the art teacher. His new responsibilities allowed Killian to get away with not having to do the mandatory "bereavement visit." Until now, it seemed. What was worse? An hour with Gold after school or an hour with Hopper before school?

He let out a frustrated sigh. "Fine, but I'm not talking about what happened."

"We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."

He watched wordlessly as Hopper scribbled a pass to class on the back of an old handout. He grabbed it with a curt nod before slowly making his way toward the stairwell.

"I'll see you tomorrow morning!"

Killian didn't say anything back, but rather let the slamming door speak for itself.

To his chagrin, word about Killian's newest achievement spread through the halls like wildfire. The excitement was oppressive. All the guys wanted to throw in their "congrats bro!" and all the girls wanted to give him a congratulatory hug that lingered just a little too long for his liking. Throughout the day he would catch little snippets of "I'm so glad he got it, especially with what happened with Liam," or "I'm so glad his luck is turning around," or the most infuriating "Liam would have been so proud! He was All State a few years back if I remember correctly." Everyone was talking about him, again, and everytime he heard his name he fought the urge to scream. Liam was no one's memory but his own. He didn't want to, wasn't ready to, share him with anyone, especially some social climbing, gossip whores.

"Yo Jones, ready to party?" Jefferson nearly tackled him to the ground as he jumped on him from behind.

"Yeah, of course. Let me just drop some of my stuff off at home and change." He plastered a smile on his face again, and couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy when he thought about Emma Swan and her meticulously kept expression of happiness. Fuck her and her optimism and her bright green eyes.

Granny's was usually a short drive from the Jones', but it took Killian a solid fifteen extra minutes to get there now. He had to avoid the bridge, which meant he had to go around the lake before cutting through two residential neighborhoods. The backroads were comforting in their desolation. He pushed the old Chevy truck to ninety-five, easing off when he sees the needle hit one hundred. The car floated at one hundred. There was no control at one hundred, but at ninety-nine he could still fly. It was like waking up from a bad dream and he was feeling more awake by the second. The speed was like a rush, and then some. Trees, houses, and other cars flew by and it is almost as if he could somehow feel everything around him and in him working all at once. His heart was beating into his throat and his blood was flowing like the winding road in front of him, and any minute he could end in a valiant acclamation of crushed metal and explosive fire. He hurtled through space and time and he couldn't stop now because now he was faster than anything and nothing matters and maybe he was already dead.

The car skidded to a stop as it slid into an empty parking spot in front of the diner. Autopilot was one hell of a place to be.

Killian forced himself go in. Before he could even take a seat, Jefferson handed him a white to go cup. "Ruby Red's got all the booze in the corner in those Coke bottles. Make sure you keep the cap on so Grandma Lucas doesn't bust us."

Will, Arthur, and all the other football players had taken over a table with some of the varsity cheerleaders. Everyone was talking a little too loudly as the girls shrieked about tying cherry stems with their mouth and the guys made bets on who could do it fastest.

"Well… well… well if it isn't the man of the hour. It's your boy, Killian Jones."

He wasn't sure who made the announcement, but the whole restaurant erupted in cheers. There was a chorus of laughter as Will stumbled over his feet as he went in to give Killian a hug.

"Ey, can someone clean this puddle up." Will shouted obnoxiously at the mess he just made.

Emma Swan supposed that she should consider herself lucky. She was working the night of the biggest party of the semester. Being there was sort of like being invited, but in a way better. She always thought that things were the most beautiful when they weren't quite real. Being able to look upon a scene as an outsider, and come to possess it in its entirety was so much more satisfying than living a fraction of it. When you're in it, you're constantly worrying about making a connection with someone, anyone. When you're watching it, the world is somehow deeper and it becomes art.

She grabbed the mop from the corner and dragged it over the now sticky puddle.

"You missed a spot." Milah tsked before dumping another cup full of booze onto the floor. Another round of laughter bubbled up from various corners of the room. Killian watched in amazement as Emma moved the mop over the new mess without so much as a glare. Just when he thought the whole ordeal was over, she looked up with a grin on her face. She tossed a glance at Milah, eyeing her up and down once before letting out a light chuckle.

"Now that is a mess that I couldn't clean up even if I tried."

Milah didn't even have time to register before Emma disappeared through the kitchen doors, the room filling with a chorus of "ohhhhhhhhs," this time, at Milah's expense.

"I'm going to kill that bitch." Milah muttered as she flops down next to Killian.

"You know, she's kinda hot."

"Who? Emma? Are you fucking blind? She's a pole." Tink wrinkled her nose in disgust.

"Ehhh, I have to agree Jeff. She's hot in that androgynous kind of way. Plus, she's got that look in her eye that tells me she's a total freak in bed." Arthur threw Jefferson a wink.

"So true. She'd probably be down to do some wild, kinky shit" The two boys laughed.

"Why would that matter to you? You only ever last two minutes anyway." Tink's voice rose at least three octaves as she shrieks at Jefferson.

"It's just because you're so hot Tink." Killian tried to join in the laughter, but everything just seemed so hollow.

"You don't want to get involved with her anyway. I heard she like, killed her ex-boyfriend. He was a baseball player at her last school," Ariel exclaimed as she popped up from behind a row of chairs.

"Oh, yeah! Graham Humbert or Humphrey or something like that. He was perfectly healthy and just dropped dead after a game one day. They're totally convinced she poisoned him because he was about to break up with her, but they don't have any proof." Milah continued the story excitedly. "Oh, that's on top of that sketchy thing with her old foster dad."

"Right! She's lucky her sister's 'found her' and got her out because she'd totally be in juvie by now." Tink's voice had somehow managed to return to it's normal pitch as the three girls talked animatedly about Emma Swan's "torrid" past.

They kept chatting and soon the gossip turned into farfetched stories about how Emma's probably a witch and how she casts spells on people and watch out she'll probably kill your cat. All of the bullshit was becoming too much for Killian. Was this how other people talk about the accident with Liam? What were people saying about him?

"Jesus Christ Milah, do you ever stop with the gossip? It's none of our business."

"What the fuck, Killian? Why are you standing up for her?"

He slammed his drink down, liquid sloshing everywhere. "I'm not standing up for her, I'm just over everyone gossiping about all this random crap that doesn't matter. Can we just stop talking about other people? Agh, forget this, I need some air."

The bell on top of Granny's door rang loudly as he forced the front door shut. Stuffing his hands in his coat pocket, he made his way to the town clock. He didn't remember the climb up the tower and he definitely didn't remember scaling the railing, but minutes later he found himself staring hard at the ground below him. The sound of the wind was shockingly loud on top of the bell tower and all he could hear was the rustle of his jacket in his ears.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were stalking me." The voice seemed to appear out of nowhere. He looked around, but saw no one and for a second he thought he was imagining things. That is, until he spotted her about ten feet above him. She had somehow climbed over the metal barrier and was sitting on the ledge right above the twelve on the town clock. The hem of her skirt blew upwards like a parachute. Her arms were linked around the railing as she leaned and pulled in a rocking motion. When she outstretched her arms, she hung just far enough that were she to slip, she'd fall all the way to the bottom.

"It's going to rain soon, you should probably go inside. It is your party after all. Besides, this is my spot and you're sort of ruining my moment." Her eyes were fixed on the sky. She wondered what would happen if she just gave herself up to the stars. Would they take her without resistance or would they fight against her the same way everything else did?

His heart beat wildly in his chest as he scrambled over his railing and ran up the steps to the very top tower. Images of blonde hair dyed orange by blood on the pavement filled his mind.

 _Blood._

 _There would be so much blood._

 _There was so much blood._

 _His hair didn't even look blonde anymore._

By the time he's standing behind her, he was panting heavily and trembling slightly. He grasped onto her wrists firmly, pressing so hard that he could feel her pulse thumping slowly against his palm.

"Okay, now you're really ruining my moment." He had never known a more inappropriate time for someone to laugh.

"What the fuck are you even doing up here?" The question is laced with equal parts anger and fear.

"I could ask you the same question." The levity of her tone was both comforting and frightening. She was too… okay with this level of danger.

"Emma... just… come back over to this side. Please. You're freaking me out." Because if she died now it would be his fault. He was literally holding her life in his hands.

"Then go." She tilted her head toward the diner, squirming slightly under his grip.

"No, I can't."

"Why?"

 _There would be so much blood._

 _I don't want to kill you._

 _I already killed him._

"Because you're here." He knew that his response didn't make sense, but in that moment nothing made sense to him.

"I know. You're here too."

"Please, you're really freaking me out." His voice raised a pitch as he felt her hands loosen their grip on the railing.

"How many people do you think live in this city? One million? Ten million?" She flexed her fingers experimentally on the rails again.

"What?"

"How many souls do you think there are in this city?" One less because of him.

"I don't know. Does it matter?"

"I guess it doesn't. I guess it's just weird that in a city of at least a million people, there are still lonely people out there. What's weirder yet, is that these lonely people still fight to be here in this shitty, messed-up world." It was as if she was spinning these sad thoughts into a fine melody. There was no anger or frustration or even sorrow in her tone, but rather, her words were filled with wonder.

He thought about the sound of crunching metal, the constriction of the seat belt as it forced him into the seat when gravity wanted to pull him head first into the ground. The blood was so sticky.

"I thought about letting go." The words slipped out before he had time to catch them.

"I do too. Every day. All the time." The grip he had on her wrists unconsciously tightened. A low chuckle gathered in her throat. "Yet, here I am. Still standing here. And if I, Emma "foster freak" Swan, can figure out how to not let go. So can you, Killian Jones."

She jerked her wrists out of his grasp and for just a second his heart stopped because he's convinced she's jumped and he has to watch another person die. But, no. In a blink, she was standing in front of him, smoothing her skirt out.

The ground rumbled beneath them as the minute hand shifted under their feet, and as time literally moved a notch in front of their eyes, Killian was reminded of how vulnerable they were to time.

"A tip, Killian Jones. Stay away from high places."

And with a flash of blonde, she was gone, the soft clicking of her boots bounding down the steps the only proof that she had been there at all.

* * *

A/N: Just an idea that's been running through my head for a while. There's definitely some Killian/Milah in the early bits of this story, but it is 100% CaptainSwan. Let me know what you think so far and if I should keep on with this.

I was in the process of writing chapter 4 and the story just felt better in past tense as I got to a place where I was doing some heavy character development. I went through and switched up the tense in this chapter (please let me know if I missed anything) and the one after it, since they were posted in present as well as added a few lines here and there. Nothing is really that different, but if you want to go back and give it a reread by all means


	2. Some Are Living in Mansions

**Triggers: Some mentions of suicidal ideation**

 **Chapter 2: Some Are Living in Mansions**

Killian Jones was exhausted. He glanced at the clock in the office for the tenth time in thirty seconds, his leg dancing up and down as he bounces it impatiently. Hopper was one minute late for their stupid meeting and really all he wanted to do was curl back up in bed and sleep for the rest of the day.

Last night had been such a disaster. To say that Milah was pissed of at his departure was a gross understatement. Something about him not understanding how humiliating it was that he spoke to her that way and how he's changed and how it's already been a month and he just needs to get over it already. It didn't help that for the rest of the night he couldn't stop staring at Emma. Is she going to tell anyone what he said? His heart raced and his hands began to shake. Holy shit, he had been hanging off the edge of a tower last night. What was he even thinking?

Mr. Hopper rushed through the door, shaking off his umbrella. "Sorry I'm late Killian. The rain caused some flooding and they closed off one of the roads on my way here. Come on in."

Mr. Hopper's office was probably the warmest room in the whole school all year around. He must have a coal burning furnace hidden in the wall somewhere because regardless of the outside temperature, it was always a toasty 75 degrees. According to the certificates hanging on the wall, Hopper graduated from Harvard and then went to Columbia for medical school, which made Killian wonder why the hell he was slumming it out as a high school guidance counselor/art teacher.

Killian sat in the dilapidated green chair opposite of Hopper's desk. He was waiting for Hopper to call him out about last night. "Hey, I heard you were on the clock tower. You know that means I'm going to have to call your dad. Last night's behavior was unacceptable. I don't know what you were thinking. We've let the hospital know you're on your way."

But all he said was "Congrats on your latest award."

Killian shrugged. "It's just football. It's not like I did anything real."

"You don't think football is real?"

He shrugged again.

"You're brother played football, right?" The strain in his voice to keep the conversation casual was painfully evident as he attempted to steer the conversation in what he perceived to be the right direction.

"I don't want to talk about Liam." The words came out like a snarl, shutting down any attempt to dig deeper into what Hopper believed to be a "root issue."

"Right, of course. How are things going with your classes?" Killian couldn't help but roll his eyes at the banality of the question. They weren't going to get anywhere today. Counseling was such a waste of time.

"Fine, I guess."

The rest of the session passed in the same fashion. Mr. Hopper nodding and smiling as he asked questions about his family (yeah, my dad is doing fine, nothing's all that different, yup he's still working at the docks), college (I don't know. I guess I want to get a football scholarship and play football), school (school is fine, I mean, I was never an A student or whatever), and his friends (they're great, Milah has been pretty supportive things are going well, so that's pretty cool. My friends threw me a party last night, which was great). The lies flowed gracefully off his tongue as he hid behind a mask of cool indifference. They didn't talk about Liam or the car crash or the fact that he has taken up sitting on ledges and driving as fast as his truck will go.

Neal Cassidy slithered up behind him the second he left Hopper's office. "So, Jones. Rumor on the street is you hooked up with Emma Swan at the clock tower last night."

"Sod off Cassidy." Shooting him a warning glare, Killian pushed past him into the busy hallway.

"So it's true then? You're cheating on my sister with the crazy little sophomore. Look man, I get it. She's cute in a manic pixie kind of way and my sister can be a total bitch."

"Get out of my face you little parasite." This time, he gave Neal a proper shove, forcing him into the wave of students trudging through the door.

Fighting through the crowd, Neal popped up behind Killian just as he was about to round the corner into the history hallway. "It's time to slide off that pedestal of yours Jones. More than one person saw you up there with her last night after you stormed off in the middle of your party. You forget that my buddy Merlin's got keys."

Killian let out a groan of frustration before whipping around and slamming Neal into the closest locker. "She was up there and looked like she was about to jump. I grabbed her arms and hauled her off the ledge and then sent her on her merry way back to Granny's Diner. Now get the fuck out of my face before I break yours." The words flew out like an angry swarm of bees and began infesting the air around them. Had he just outed her secret? Will she tell the whole school his if she found out?

"Wow… don't tell me you're not only a star athlete but you're also a bloody fucking hero now too." The sarcasm was almost palpable. "Well, then… I guess we ought to have another celebration in your honor." He let out a single, patronizing breath of laughter before pushing off the wall behind him. "Should I start calling you Sir Killian Jones? You know, since you're a knight in shining armor now."

The ringing of the first bell saved him from having to respond. Instead, he grabbed his bag with a growl before quickly weaving his way through the throngs of students.

First period hadn't even officially started yet and the whispers had already begun. Hallways and classes fill up with chatter about how "oh my god Killian Jones saved Emma Swan from nose diving off the clock tower" and "well I heard that she tried to pull him down with her."

He couldn't even look at her when she walked into English.

Water droplets clung to her face and hair, the squish of her wet shoes drawing even more attention to her entrance than usual. Blonde tendrils stuck to her face in heavy clumps as she threw her bag in the corner next to her desk.

Opening her planner, Emma quickly crossed off another day on her calendar. 56 days left. She's got 56 more days. 1 months and 3 weeks and 5 days. She sighed and fixed a tight smile on her face. Mr. Gold gave her a small nod as he walked through the door. All of the teachers were always treating her like she was some fragile little thing and while she appreciated their good intentions, all she wanted is for people to just stop looking at her. Couldn't they all see that she was doing just fine?

"Alright class. Things are starting to pick up a bit in our class novel, The Handmaid's Tale. Because this is Advanced Placement English and my job is to prepare you for what college level English classes will look and sound like, I want to go through the rest of this unit a little differently. You will be working in partners for the remainder of the six weeks in this unit." A sense of restless settled on the class as everyone began looking around in an attempt to spot potential partners.

Tink's hand shot up in the air. "Mr. Gold, please tell us that we're allowed to choose our partners."

"As I said, this is meant to stimulate the collaborative work that you will be doing in college. I am trusting you to find a partner who will help you be successful." The whole room breathed a collective sigh of relief.

"As I was saying, together, you will not only finish the novel but you will also write three papers addressing a variety of different prompts about the book's themes, symbols, and greater literary significance. At the end of the six weeks, you will present your interpretation with a short skit. You will have every class period from here on out to work, but I will tell you this right now. If you do not work on this outside of class, you will not finish. Tomorrow-"

Gold's speech was interrupted by the shrill shriek of the class phone. Frustrated, he snatched the phone off the receiver. "Yes, she's here. I'll send her down right away."

"Emma, grab your things. Mr. Hopper needs to see you in his office."

She didn't even bother asking why. It was an old pattern with her, had been one at every school she's been at. Someone is either worried about her (God knows why. She's been trying her best with the whole smiling and laughing thing) or worried that she's going to do something to them (The story about Graham making their rounds around the school again?). Her wet things clung to her uncomfortably as she tried to slink out of the classroom as stealthily as possible. The desperate look Killian Jones gave her goes unnoticed.

"They finally kicking you out of school, freakshow? About fucking time." A howl of laughter erupted from a group of football players in the back. She's not sure how she does it, but she managed to grit her teeth and keep a small, but confident smirk on her face.

"This whole class is about to earn an hour's worth of detention from me if I hear one more word come out of anyone's mouth." She's out the door and halfway down the hall before she could hear the end of Mr. Gold's sentence.

Emma Swan loved that Hopper's office is always warm. She remembered a time when no matter how hard she tried she was never able to get warm. Threadbare clothes and a hard cot with no bedding left her shivering through countless nights in a damp room. Group homes in Maine were notorious for being underfunded and overcrowded, not to mention ill suited for habitation in general. The last one she had lived in was an abandoned electrical factory. She was there right before she moved in with Fiona and Malcolm. An involuntary shudder runs through her body. 56 more days.

"How are things with Regina and Mary Margaret?" Dr. Hopper's soothing voice always manage to steady her pounding heart.

She swallowed once, then twice, pushing down the sense of foreboding that has washed over her. She painted a smile on her face. "Good. Mary Margaret just moved out to live with her boyfriend Dave, so I have a room just for my books and stuff. Robin helped me build shelves last weekend while Regina was away at her conference."

"That sounds great! You're working at Granny's right? Waitressing?"

"Yeah, just on weekends normally, but sometimes I pick up a few extra shifts if I don't need to be at home watching Roland." Perpetual babysitting was a small price to pay for all that her sister's have done for her. It was still weird at times to think of Regina and Mary Margaret as her sisters. Two years ago, she hadn't even known of their existence.

"Does that stress you out? Having to watch Roland?"

"No, not at all. I love watching Roland. He's awesome." In fact, Roland reminded her of a foster brother she had once upon a time. His name was Henry. He was six years younger than she was and loved fairy tales and stories about knights and roundtables. He would sneak into her room late at night with a flashlight and beg for just one more story. She called him her truest believer because he always believed that one day a fairy godmother would come and take the two of them to an enchanted forest where they would never get old and live happily ever after. She had spent all of her extra art time in school painting that forest for him for his seventh birthday, and even though she finished it, he never got to see it. Social worker told her it was an accident.

"That's good to hear, Emma. I'm glad you're doing so well." Despite his jovial tone, Emma could sense that there was something more to this meeting. She watched as he sat, back just a bit too straight, leaning expectantly forward, a nervous tap settling on his fingers.

"Mr. Hopper, with all due respect… I know you didn't call me down here to ask about my sisters and my step-nephew. Let's just cut to the chase, save us both a little time."

He sighed deeply and his smile dropped. "Emma, some of the teachers overheard a few of the students talking this morning about an incident at the clock tower last night."

Now it was her turn to lean forward. "What about the clock tower?"

"So, you were there last night?" Her silence was enough of an answer for him. "May I ask why?"

She felt the frustration begin to bubble deep within her. He was digging too deep, digging into a piece of her she didn't know how describe and couldn't control. Mr. Hopper was looking at her with this strange mixture of fear and concern, the same look she got from Regina and Mary Margaret when they picked her up from the police station, the look you give a wounded dog before you know if it's friendly or dangerous. A piece of her wanted to tell him everything. Yes, I was there. Yes, as a matter of fact I do go there every night. Oh and why yes, jumping off does cross my mind because there is 56 days left and I just don't know how to deal right now.

But she couldn't. She couldn't tell him any of this, so she crossed her legs and leaned back. "I wanted to see the view."

"Is there a reason why Killian Jones had to pull you over the railing?" Emma's brows furrowed in confusion. Killian Jones? So, this was actually all about he pretty boy football play with the newfound angst streak. Emma could see it in his eyes the day after his brother died. He became a Lost Boy, a phrase Henry had coined after the two of them read Peter Pan together, someone who has lost their way. She felt her hand twitch underneath Mr. Hopper's desk as she thought back to last night, the desolation in his voice when he finally admitted that he thought about letting go. No one deserved to feel that degree of loneliness.

In that moment, Emma Swan made her decision. "Look, Mr. Hopper. I was on a break and I wanted some air, so I went to the clock tower to look at the view. I was leaning forward and slipped. I guess Killian was walking below and saw that I needed help. He ran up the steps and pulled me back." Hopper studied her suspiciously, narrowing his eyes to a squint, staring at her hard, trying to induce a sweat.

"Honest, Mr. Hopper. It was all just a misunderstanding." She tried to sound her most sincere, because the last thing she wanted was a bigger, brighter spotlight directed at her, following her throughout the halls of school, throughout the other parts of her life, such as they were. A nagging piece of her was also convinced that increased attention is the last thing Killian wanted any more of despite the bravado with which he carries himself.

Hopper stalked around his desk and gathered a stack of various pamphlets. "You're not alone Emma. You can always talk to me. My door is always open."

What Emma really wanted to say was that's not much of a comfort right now, but instead she settled on a simple "thanks, see you in art" before gracefully ducking out of his office and slipping seamlessly back in the jungle that is Storybrooke High.

* * *

Weaving up and down the various corridors in the morning was significantly easier than during the school day when the halls were packed with hormonal teenagers. The art hall was nestled in the back of the school between the music wing and the theater wing. Last year before the school had a real art program, the stoners used to hide up in the stairwell and take hits before chorus or fine arts.

She's got all of her supplies spread out around her in the room, a pair of turquoise earbuds plugged snuggly in her ears. The three sizes too big for her sweatshirt weighed on her shoulders, making each brush stroke look like a Herculean effort. Like Atlas, she held a heavy burden on her shoulders. What that was, unclear at the moment, but something Killian was curious about as he felt increasingly weighed down by his own world of troubles.

"I'm sorry." Without removing her earbuds, she glanced up, her eyes obstructed by the thick rim of her glasses.

"Why are you apologizing? I should be thanking you. You did save my life last night after all." Dark paint continued to spill across the white canvass.

"I can explain. Ne- someone caught me off guard and I didn't mean to say that, okay? It just sort of came out. I didn't… I don't know…" He ran his hands through his hair in frustration, his fingers digging nervously into the back of his neck.

"I do." A splatter of yellow sat jovially on the black just as a swath of mahogany hid it again. "I don't care. It doesn't matter. Say what you need to to make yourself feel better." A streak of dark blue acrylic paint on her cheek made her skin look almost alabaster under the glowing fluorescent lights.

"You make me sound like some superficial asshole."

"I don't mean to make you sound like something you don't think you are." It was the sincerity in her voice that almost killed him. He stood, frozen, completely unsure of what he should say or do next. He felt like the world's biggest dick.

The strange music created by the swish swoosh of her paint brush echoed through the otherwise silent room. "Look, I'm not going to say anything about what really happened, alright? It's not like anyone would believe me anyway, so you can stop staring at my like I'm about to shoot your puppy." He let out the breath he didn't even know he was holding.

"I'm sorry… again. Truly, deeply, genuinely sorry. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?" For the first time since he walked into the art room, the sound of her strokes stopped.

"Actually, there is one thing." A small smile brightened her face.

Name it," he responded almost instantaneously. He would do anything to make him feel less like a pile of shit and to put this whole situation behind him.

"Be my partner for Gold's project."

Six weeks. Killian Jones would be stuck with Emma Swan everyday in English for six weeks. He was probably going to have to meet her outside of school to do research too. Admittedly, she wasn't terrible to look at and he's got a pretty big soft spot for the little weirdo, but goddamn he had a reputation to uphold and Milah and his mates were never going to let him live this down. He groaned internally. He couldn't risk her telling the whole school about what happened last night, and maybe, just maybe, a tiny piece of him actually cared enough that he didn't want to be the guy that destroyed the tiny little smile dancing playfully on her face (not that he would ever admit this to anyone).

"Okay."

* * *

A/N: Let me know what you guys think! Should I keep going with this?

As mentioned in the A/N last chapter, made a few tense changes to this one. You probably won't see too many huge differences, but give it a reread just in case :)


	3. Some Are Living in Holes

**Chapter 3: Some Are Living in Holes**

Killian threw his phone across the bed as he fell rather ungracefully face first onto his bed with a groan. It had taken over an hour of coaxing and reassuring and apologizing and pleading before Milah finally decided to stop being pissed off at him. (No darling, of course I understand why you're mad. Last night was 100% my fault, you know how I get when I get stressed about Liam. We were the only ones who didn't have partners, it's not like I had a choice. Yes I know she's a social pariah. I'll make it up to you, I promise. No, I get it. You need some space, that's fine. Tomorrow then? Of course you can't resist. I'm just so devilishly handsome. I love you. I'll see you tomorrow) The conversation with Milah had him feeling drained and truthfully he wasn't really sure what the truth was anymore. Turning over, he glanced at the clock on the nightstand.

He couldn't remember the last time he didn't have plans on a Friday night. If it wasn't a boy's night at Will's it was date night with Milah. For the first time in a long time, Killian Jones had nowhere he needed to be. It would have been strangely liberating had it not also felt eerily isolating. He briefly contemplated making plans with someone on the football team before deciding against it. Lately, it's been taking too much out of him to pretend.

Ignoring the growing stack of undone homework and handouts perching precariously on the edge of his desk, he reached over and undocked his laptop. A quick check on Facebook showed that Will and Belle had "checked in" to the new Thai place over on the other side of town, Ariel, Tink, and Elsa were catching the new Marvel flick in Bangor, and Jefferson had posted an entire album of him trying on different hats at the mall with Alice. Arthur already had pictures from last night's party up in an old album titled "Eat your heart out NFL, the Jones brothers are coming for ya." The cover was a picture of him and Liam, both in their football uniform, numbers 46 and 12, with the caption "Jones BrosThe Mannings." He wanted to message Arthur and tell him to delete that shit because there is no more "Jones Bros," but he couldn't because he's supposed to over it because he told everyone that everything is fine and that he knows that accidents happen and Liam would have wanted him to go on with his life.

 _Except it wasn't an accident._

 _It was his fault._

Most of the pictures from the night before were just blurry messes of drunk cheerleaders and even drunker football players. Scanning through the album, Killian deduced that they must have kept that party going for another hour or so after he and Milah left to have their blowout fight. Twenty selfies of Anna and Kristoff later, he stopped. It must have been taken as an accident. Lopsided and shaky, to anyone clicking through it was just a random shot of the front counter snapped in an alcohol induced haze. The back door must have been open because her skirt was billowing in the picture. He was suddenly back on the clock tower, watching as her skirt danced wildly in the wind.

A sense of guilt settled in his chest as he quickly typed "Emma Swan" into the search bar only to yield no results. He tried again with a few different permutations of her name (E. Swan, Emma S, and Ems S) before pushing the computer away in frustration because really, what kind of freak doesn't have a Facebook now a days?

He decided to open a new tab and punched in her name in Google instead. The first result was to a DeviantArt account, Dark_Swan914. A mix of paintings and pencil sketches, her collection was a strange amalgamation of dark shadows and light pastels. Much like the painting he ran into the other day, everything she created seemed to consist of twisting layers that curled on top of each other in such a way that no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't find when one piece started and the other ended. He scrolled through her gallery, his eyes catching names like "The Day the Magic Died," "The Memory of Light," and "We Are Ants to the Stars." Everything on her page had hundreds of "favs" with comments ranging from the simple "this is everything," to the creepy "I will pay you $1000 if you send me a painting of yourself in a bikini."

By the time he reached the end, he had anonymously favorited three pieces and saved another one to his desktop. He minimized Google Chrome and admired his new background. She had titled it "Loss." It was a simple landscape, a harbor at night. The sky was depicted much like the sky in Van Gogh's Starry Night, all abstract whorls and dizzying designs. However, what set hers apart was the dark and sinister color scheme. A small untethered ship bobbed gently in the foreground. He didn't know why, but he wanted to wrap himself up in the painting's blues and greys, find refuge in the tiny specks of gold and orange that appeared as though they were fighting against the darkness. The whole thing seemed so alive. Killian swore if he held his breath he could hear the whistle of the wind and the splashing of the waves hitting the rocks.

"I must be dreaming. Killian Jones is home on a Friday night? And, no, couldn't be. Is that homework out in front of him?" Killian jumped at the sound of his dad's voice and quickly grabbed his copy of The Handmaid's Tale off the top of his desk, opening it to a random page.

Brennan Jones had never been a strict parent. On the contrary, he was always one to let his sons do as they pleased as long as they stayed out of trouble. Up until a month ago, he was running the most prominent fishing vessel in Maine, the name Jones synonymous with a new wave of maritime entrepreneurship. He'd be gone for weeks at a time, leaving his two young boys to run the house on their own.

"Uhh, yeah. I'm super behind in everything since… you know."

"Right." The air around them tightened as both men stiffen. "Well, I'm glad you're finally taking the academic part of school more seriously." Brennan Jones shifted uncomfortably on the balls of his feet. "I guess I'll leave you to it then," he finished hastily before making a quick retreat downstairs.

It's not that Killian and his dad didn't get along. It was more like they never really knew each other. Conversations between them had always been slightly uncomfortable at best, but things were definitely easier with Liam around to meditate. Killian sighed as he closed his book, opened up his computer again, and pulled on a pair of headphones. Tonight seemed like a fall asleep to football documentaries sort of night, but before he could even hit play, a small chirp from his phone pulled him back to reality.

 _Hey Killian! This is Emma. Just wanted to touch base really quick about our project. Did you want to work on themes? I can write on symbols/motifs and we can put together what we have in class on Monday._ He had almost forgotten that he gave her his number before he left school earlier this afternoon. His first instinct was to just switch his phone off and ignore her until Monday rolled around, but he thought about how badly he's fucked her over and how she could single handedly screw up everything he's worked for and most importantly how he's absolutely fallen madly in love with her paintings because they were the only things that have made him feel something other than pissed off ever since Liam died.

 **Hey, love. So, you probably didn't know this, since you asked me to be your partner, but I am absolute shit at English.** He tapped out a terse reply and hoped she would get the hint.

 _Love? I don't think so. Have you tried actually reading it?_ If he was being honest, he hadn't.

 **Sorry. Habit. And Obviously. I just don't get this whole symbolism/theme thing.**

Her reply was almost instantaneous. _The theme is the message of the novel. So think what is Atwood trying to say about totalitarian government, the role of fear, the use of female bodies as political instruments._

"She really doesn't know when to quit," he thought to himself.

 **I'm not even going to pretend I understood that.**

 _Want to come over? I can explain it to you and maybe we can even get a head start on the writing. A few seconds passed. I'll even bribe you with dinner._ His stomach growled at the prospect of home cooked food. That and the idea of having to sit awkwardly with his dad over leftover Chinese takeout was enough to convince him that maybe spending the evening with Emma Swan wouldn't be the worst idea after all.

* * *

Emma Swan lived in a mansion, a real, honest, castle on the hill type white mansion. Shocked, Killian drove a few circles around the estate before pulling out his phone to double check the address. How was it that no one at school knew about how loaded Emma Swan was?

 **Your place has more secured entrances than the White House. How do I even get in?**

Seconds later all the gates seemed to magically open. He looked around curiously and made a note that he entered through the West Entrance before pulling his truck into what he hoped was an empty spot by a topiary garden.

 **Okay, I'm at the West Entrance. Where do I go from here?**

 _Just go through the double doors. I'll meet you in the living room._

Standing awkwardly in the middle of a modern day interpretation of an old fashioned French salon, Killian glanced around, making note of the various paintings hanging on the walls. He recognized the small one by the fireplace as "The Lighthouse Keeper" and the bright one on the edge of the foyer as "Enchantment." A piece of him felt a little strange about being so intimately acquainted with her art when in reality, he really knew absolutely nothing about her except for what he's heard from everyone else (and how much of that is really true?). Was it weird that he could name all of her pencil sketches, but didn't know her favorite color (although he would wager that it was probably some variation of navy blue).

"Sorry about that! I always forget that Robin and Regina lock the whole place down after 8pm." She was wearing a paint splattered white sweatshirt over a pair of leggings, her hair pulled up in a messy ponytail, a slight flush on her face from just having sprint down the stairs. He couldn't help but notice that she appeared lighter somehow, more at ease, more alive. In that moment, he realized just how much all that shit at school really affected her. She always seemed so sure, so impervious to the hurtful machinations of insecure teenagers. The truth of the matter was that she was just an excellent actress. A piece of him felt a bit disillusioned. He had always been slightly fascinated by the way she smiled and laughed in the face of humiliating taunts and sinister gossip. But another, bigger piece of him was actually relieved. She wasn't some magical happy nymph. She was a human, a whole, flawed, but tenacious human.

"Wait. Regina?" The gears turned quickly in his head before it finally clicked. "Hold the fucking phone. You're sister is Regina Mills? The Regina Mills? The fashioner designer Regina Mills?" Her eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. She hadn't expected him to figure it out that quickly. "Does anyone else know this? Jesus Christ Swan, you could be SHS royalty. All the girls would be kissing your feet if they knew."

She shrugged uneasily. "Yeah, well, popularity has never really been something I worried about. Besides, who my sister is doesn't really change who I am."

"I guess that makes sense." It didn't really, at least not to him. Why would she hide the one thing that would save her from two more years of living in high school hell? Maybe he was shallow, but he couldn't actually fathom why she wouldn't be throwing this in everyone's face. The look on Tink and Ariel's face alone would be worth revealing this piece of news to the entire school and he couldn't help the amused glint that played across his face. However, the nervous look in her eyes made him pause and reconsider. "Your secret's safe with me, Swan."

Her shoulder sagged with relief. There was just too much, too many secrets that could come out. People already talked about her. The last thing she needed was an excuse for even more people to talk about her. It was bad enough they talked about Graham, she didn't need anyone talking about Regina. "Thanks. I know you don't get it, but I just don't want people to know, at least not right now." Although her green eyes had brightened considerably, something dark lingered right below the surface.

Eager to shake off the oppressive pall that had settled between them, Killian casually threw his arm over her shoulder. "So, I do believe I was promised food… and an A in English."

He felt her stiffen under him and immediately regretted his decision. Her whole body tightened and like a bird attempting its first flight, her shoulder blades pulled back tautly, her neck stiffening, a subtle arch appearing in her back. He watched as her hand clenched in a fist that, like some weird heartbeat, began pumping a strange rhythm as it flexed and relaxed in a strange, seemingly involuntary motion. Pulling away, he searched her eyes for a clue on what may have caused this sudden distress.

She shook her head so violently that he could have sworn that he heard rattling and just like that, she was back.

"Sorry about that. I just don't really like people getting in my space." The apology sitting heavily on his tongue tasted stale, but saying anything that would just brush this incident off felt wrong, so he just waited. "How about that dinner I promised you."

"Sure, love. I'm starving." The words crackled and crunched their way through his vocal chords. Shock from what just transpired made his voice hoarse, thickening his usually barely perceptible accent.

"For the record, I did not promise you an A in English."

"Honestly, at this point, I'm just hoping to pass." The quick banter between them slowly dissolved any lingering tension.

He watched her glide through the kitchen, deftly balancing plates and cups on her arms and in her hands as she spun gracefully around the kitchen. In another life she must have been a dancer or a princess or something.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Didn't give me much of a choice there," she joked over a pot of sauce. Killian tried to remember the last time they ate a homemade meal in the Jones' household. It must have been when his mother was still alive, but even then meals that didn't come out of a box were few and far between.

"Very funny Swan. Why are you waitressing at Granny's if your sister is richer than God?" Being a waitress at Granny's was, in Killian's opinion, one of the worst possible jobs in Storybrooke. A frequent study spot for 90% of the SHS student population, you only work there if you are either desperate for the money or had some weird fetish for stale coffee and teenage angst.

"It's something to do. I like to keep busy." Keeping busy was good because keeping busy kept all the bad thoughts away.

He studied her closely. It wasn't that he doubted her. She was a sophomore taking advanced English after all, so there were definitely some perfectionist or overachieving qualities in her. There was just something very peculiar her method to staying busy. Thinking about the females in his social circle, most high school girls filled their time with the mall or the nail salon or building their social media presence. Working at a diner for the sake of filling time seemed like an odd choice, especially given her proclivity for painting and sketching. He figured a girl like Emma would settle on an activity that was more goal oriented.

Before he had a chance to ask her a follow up question, a slice of lasagna and a small side salad was dished onto his plate. Liam used to eat lasagna from a box all the time. He would pop it into the oven and it wouldn't take long for the cloying smell of cheap marinara sauce to fill the air. However, there was nothing artificial about the meal in front of him. It was hot and soft and smelled of sweet butter and garlic.

"Holy. Shit. This smells amazing!"

"It's just from a box."

"You're joking."

"I am." She paused for a beat. "You literally just watched me make the sauce." She stared him dead in the eye and blinks once, then twice before a tiny giggle escapes. Before he knows it, he was laughing too. It was a touch overwhelming at first, the happiness. The feeling snuck up from behind him and engulfed in like a warm duvet.

"Well, lass, perhaps I'm not as perceptive as I thought I was." This moment was everything Killian Jones was not. It was domestic and homey and fluffy and soft, but he decided that at least for now, he was going to let himself enjoy it.

"I'll say," she retorts with a snort. Her fork scraped against her plate as she pushed around the cucumber slices and romaine salad.

"Please don't tell me you made this restaraunt quality lasagna just so you could pretend to eat a salad."

"Guess I'm just not that hungry," she declared as she shoved her plate away from her. "Come on, finish up. Judging by your texts, I have a feeling that we're going to have a lot of work to do tonight,"

He decided not to press the issue, but couldn't fight the nagging feeling that there was something amiss. In the last half hour, he's flipped through the pages that compromised the book that was Emma Swan and determined that there was something unsettling about its contents. She was a dark mystery novel covered with a pink dust jacket, filled with stories he couldn't even begin to understand.

"Swan, I have a confession to make."

"Let me guess, you didn't actually read the book." The sheepish smile on his face told her everything she needed to know. "Well, lucky for you I'm already done and I've annotated my copy. You can take that with you. Should make answering some of the theme prompts easier." Soapy plates knocked noisily against each other in the sink.

"Allow me to finish up the dishes. I sort of tricked you into thinking we were actually going to do work and I ate all of your food. It's the least that I can do."

"Let's split it. We'll finish faster that way."

Four hands swan in a pool of suds diving for sunken silver and ceramic. More than once Killian felt his hand accidentally brush up against Emma's, but to his surprise, there was no awkward eye contact, no shy retreat. Everything was so easy with her. He could feel several months worth of pent up strain gently easing out of his body.

"I had foster parents who sent me back because I broke a bowl once," she remarked casually as she set a bowl on the drying rack. "I think I was eating cereal or soup or something. Anyway, I was trying to dump out the extra liquid and dropped it in the sink and it shattered."

Killian stopped and glanced over at the small girl next to her. He's surprised that he has never noticed how very tiny she actually was. She must have been small for her size when she was a toddler. Standing side by side she barely reached the top his shoulder. In school, she always had this presence, this force. For the second time that night, he didn't know what to say, an apology seemed tasteless, a follow up question felt inappropriate.

"My brother, Liam. He used to throw away plates that he didn't want to wash. Like, just chuck them in the garbage can. It drove my dad absolutely nuts. We went through a phase where we were only allowed to use paper plates and cups. Dad finally brought the real dishes back when Liam almost set the house on fire because he tried making a mug cake in a Solo cup. " Killian smiled at the memory. Liam might have been the responsible one, but he had also always been the lazy one. He allowed himself to soak in the pleasant memory. It was warm, but felt so diametrically different from the unrelenting burn of the fire that haunted his nightmares. It thawed his him from the inside out. The soft clink of a glass being placed in the drying rack grounded him as he braced himself for the onslaught of trite comments and questions that usually followed when he talked about his brother (oh, do you miss him, how do you feel now, I'm so sorry for your loss), but surprisingly Emma doesn't say anything. She just gave him a smile and soft hum.

"He sounds like a real character."

"Yeah, he definitely was."

"Hang tight for a second. I'm going to run up and get you that book." Her bare feet barely made a sound across the hardwood as she sprinted up the stairs.

Thinking back, this was probably one of the strangest nights Killian has ever had. He never thought he would have willingly spent a Friday night with one of the school's biggest social outcasts. But he didn't just spend Friday night with her. He enjoyed spending a Friday night with her. Her presence was like a small pond, calm and cool and quiet, so very unlike the exaggerated displays of enthusiasm so popular amongst his social circle. She saw a piece of him that no one else has ever seen and while it may sound arrogant and presumptuous, he believed that he saw something in her that no one else has ever seen either.

"Here it is." She placed a very well loved copy of The Handmaid's Tale in his hands. A flurry of colored tabs and post notes stuck out wildly along the side.

"You are such an overachiever," he joked as he tucked the book in his bag.

"I'm just thorough. Drop me a text once you finish and maybe we can actually have a real discussion."

He was suddenly overcome with the desire to stay. He wanted to lie with her in a soft patch of grass and ask her about her favorite color and what her painting "Loss" was about and what does it mean when she layers her colors the way she does. He wanted to tell her that her paintings were the only things that made him feel alive anymore. He wanted to sit on the clock tower with her and feel the hands moving beneath them because somewhere deep down he knows that she's the only person who gets what it feels like to not want to feel anymore.

Just as he's about to ask her if she wants to go out for a walk, his thoughts filled with Milah, his fiery Milah. A mixture of guilt and shame wormed itself into his chest, so he settled with "Definitely. I'll see you Monday."

Emma watched as he made his way out the front door and through the yard. He seemed lighter, happier, and she couldn't help but think that she made the right decision in not telling Mr. Hopper about what he had said to her the night before. It was a selfish. She was playing with someone's life. But thinking about him and how to fix his problems made the voices in her head dulled the throbbing in her own head. All the voices that reverberated within her skull died down to a whisper when she focused on all that was in front of her. Unlike a book that ended even after she tagged every page and analyzed every line or a painting that would eventually be finished despite layer upon layer of added paint, Killian Jones could distract her forever, and that's what she needed.

Truth was, Killian Jones didn't belong in Neverland with Lost Girl's like her. He was too whole. She had been smashed and put back together so many times that nothing worked anymore. Nothing was where it should be. There was heavy thumping in her shoulder where her heart was supposedly beating. Joints and muscles were all twisted on top of each other to the point where most days she was surprised that she could breathe let alone move.

There was a frantic knock on the door before an aggressive slam shook the ostentatious glass chandelier that hung above her.

"Swan… This is really awkward, but I seemed to have misplaced my truck."

* * *

A/N: So, funny story. I thought I posted this updated like three days ago, but apparently I just uploaded the document... awkward. Anyways, please let me know what you think. Reviews feed the writers soul. I'm banking on weekly updates on Tuesday/Wednesday moving forward.


	4. Yet There's No Place for Us, My Dear

**Trigger warnings: Brief mention of suicidal ideation**

 **Chapter 4: Yet There's No Place for Us, My Dear**

The cool November air felt like a bucket of ice water waking him from a fever dream. He could already feel the flush beginning to leave his body as his feet crunched through the fallen leaves. Memories of the night were already beginning to float away and before he could reach out and snatch them back, her soft giggles, the warmth of Liam's mug cake, and the tang of the lasagna on his tongue all faded into the dark vastness of the starless night sky. Gripping the remote attached to the keys to the truck, he tapped impatiently at the unlock button a few times. Instead of the telltale chirp and whir of the engine, he was met with nothing but silence. Where the fuck was the Jolly?

When he was younger, Liam used to read him from an old copy of Peter Pan. Afterwards the two of them would use crayons to draw all over his dad's discarded fishing maps and pretend to be pirates looking for buried treasure. Couches, rolling chairs, and even old boxes were commandeered and used as ships in their many hours of make believe. Always honorable and dignified, Liam would end their sessions with a heroic rescue as he defeated the dreaded Captain Hook. Despite him being a villain, Killian accepted the nickname proudly and from ages 4-10 he almost went exclusively by the moniker, Hook. It was no surprise that Liam would name his first car after such an iconic pirate image.

He did a quick and frantic search of the area before sprinting across the lawn, the outline of Emma's silhouette becoming clearer with each step. The sound of glass clinking against each other filled the room as he barreled through the front door.

"Swan… This is really awkward, but I seemed to have misplaced my truck." The urgency of the moment was lost as he huffed and panted through his declaration.

"You lost your car?" She asked, her eyes narrowing in confusion.

"Bloody hell, yes! I parked it at the West Entrance when I first got here and now it's fucking gone."

"Wait. West Entrance. You didn't park it by a tree that looked like it could have come out of a Dr. Seuss book did you?" The mahogany floor groaned under the weight of his frustration as a manic glint flashed through his eyes.

"Yeah, I guess the trees looked a bit wonky."

"Damn. Leroy probably had it moved. He's really particular about his trees. It's no big deal though. We'll just walk over to his little makeshift tow lot."

"Wait, what? Who is Leroy and why is he moving my truck?"

"He's our grumpy gardener and is in love with his topiary garden. Those trees are his babies and he doesn't let anyone park anywhere near them. I should have warned you when you said you pulled into the West Entrance."

A pair of white converse slid smoothly over her pink floral socks. Bright yellow sparks from the chandelier bounced off her and cast a bright halo around her, the white sweatshirt and shoes furthering her angelic aura. For just one moment, Killian forgot all about the truck and the strange gardener.

"Come on, let's go."

The light from the house faded quickly as the two of them crossed the yard. It was strange how everything seemed further away in the dark. Even though she was only a few paces ahead of him, Emma appeared to be miles away, the swish of her blonde hair a lighthouse beckoning him to move closer. Like a fly drawn to some unknown light, he followed it blindly. Under the heavy blanket of the night sky, she reminded him of a ghost, existing as nothing more than a pale apparition floating silently over the tall grass. The official end of the estate was marked by a flimsy wooden fence. Just like the night of the clocktower, she flipped deftly over the top before disappearing in the overgrowth. His own attempt to scale the fence was marked with clumsy fumbling and an ungraceful thud.

"And you call yourself an athlete," she joked quietly.

"I'm a football player, not a hurdler." He could almost feel rolling her eyes at his weak retort.

A grove of trees stood ominously before them. It was as if the darkness was beckoning them to come closer with a seductive whisper. His ears were sharpened. There were new noises, caterwauling and cooing, hooting and barking. Whooshing cries of the last cicadas of the year became the instrumental soundtrack foregrounding their adventure. For Killian, there was something ineffably comforting about being lost in the woods.

Adrenaline began pumping through Emma's system as she moved quickly through the dark woods. Her head spun, the trees warping around her in a way that made trail feel more like a carnival funhouse. In that moment, she began to regret offering to get Killian's car back because now she was drowning in the darkness. It slid into her body like tar and coated her insides with a thick sticky film that made it hard to breathe and impossible to move. She fought the urge to claw desperately at her neck because it never worked. She had tried it so many times in the past only to feel the vice grip on her tighten. The edges of her vision were beginning to blur as she opened her mouth to scream.

"Yo, Swan. We're not all track stars! Can you please slow down?" He sounded like he was underwater. Even though his voice sounded murky and distorted, it was enough to quiet the deafening pounding in her head. "Where are we going anyway?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Emma took a few shuddering gasps under the guise of catching her breathe. A tentative "um" slipped out of a dramatic exhale before she was finally able to squeak out an explanation.

"Leroy has this tiny little makeshift tow lot under the Key Bridge. We're going to cut through the…" Killian couldn't process the rest of what she was saying. A strange mixture of anger, resentment, and frustration resonated from his core. What kind of game was she playing? How could she think dragging him to the Key Bridge was a good idea? He was suddenly burning again, blinded by the depth of his emotions.

"You've got some fucking nerve Swan! Who do you even think you are? Jesus Christ, you are some twisted freak. Maybe everything they said about you had some truth in it. All that shit about your foster dad and Graham is becoming more-" The majority of his tirade fell on deaf ears. It was funny how all aggressive, angry rants sounded alike. They were deep baritone roars followed by sharp cracks of vocal chords sliding together like the biological equivalent of the screech of a taught violin string meeting the wrong side of a bow. Her world was spinning. Attempting to grab onto the crumbling earth around her, she slipped through the cracks of her fracturing world.

He didn't notice her breaths beginning to quicken until they morphed into a full blown panic attack. Stopping mid sentence, he ran to her, standing as close as he could without touching her. It was as if she were shackled by invisible chains and an unseen puppet master was randomly tugging at strings from behind an invisible curtain, jerking her back and forth. His wrath melted into a type of confusion and panic.

"Swan?" He tried to keep his voice far from alarm, he really does.

"Christ Emma what's going on?" She didn't respond. A low keening noise punctuated her sharp gasps.

"Emma!" Killian could no longer restrain his fear as he goes to grab her just before her knees hit the ground. Her back rests against his chest. With each heaving breath he was hit with her thin frame, all sinewy tendons and exposed bones. Thinking back to the way Liam would rub soothing circles on his back when he suffered night terrors as a kid, he attempted to calm her down by timing the way his hands moved with his breathing.

Time passed in uneven intervals as seconds, maybe minutes, maybe even hours ticked past. He couldn't keep track of anything except for the slight tremors and quivers that pulsed through her. The fact that he managed to stay composed through what just happened was a miracle especially considering how close he was to the godforsaken bridge. The steady weight of her head against his chest was the only thing that was keeping him grounded. Unconsciously, his grip around her middle tightened, an action that didn't go unnoticed. In an unexpected moment of strength, she pushed off from the ground, propelling herself forward, scrambling underneath a tree.

He watches as she studies his face. Her eyes mapping out the contours and grooves of his chiseled visage. Had it been any other person, Killian would have found it unsettling, but the way her eyes shifted and danced, squinting and inspecting reminded him of a lost kitten. Careful not to startle her or intrude into her space, he moved over to her slowly.

"Hey," he whispered coaxingly.

"I'm sorry." The apology forced out between halting breaths. "I didn't even think about the bridge. I didn't realize…"

"No," he interrupted gently. "I'm the one that should be sorry. I completely blew up. I know it's no excuse, but I've been doing that a lot lately. I shouldn't have said those things to you." An uncomfortable silence by the sound of rustling leaves separated the two of them.

"Someone once told me that to be mad was really just to feel the happiness of something that can never be experienced again." She wasn't looking at him when she finally spoke. Rather, her eyes were fixated on the cloudy sky above her. The way the words floated from her reminded him of the way she spoke that night on the clock tower, light, melodic, trance-like.

"You're…" The adrenaline from earlier was beginning to seep out of his body. That ordeal had been enervating, and Killian found that it was impossible to form coherent thoughts. "You're really weird, you know that right?"

"No, you're literally the first person to ever say that about me."

It had come out bluntly, almost as if she was chastising him. Looking up, Killian's eyebrow lifted ever slightly, a look of confusion playing on his face. Halting giggles slipped passed shuddered breaths, the small pearls of joy bleeding into her untethered anguish until they blended into a gentle laugh. Before he knew it, he found himself lying on his back in the wet grass, clutching his stomach as he tried to contain his own enthusiasm. Nothing was really all that funny, but in that moment if she hadn't found an excuse to laugh, she would have dissolved. So they both laughed just a little too loudly, laughed as if they could scare the monsters they were both battling away.

"Come on. We still have to get to your truck." She seemed to sense his hesitancy. "I know a different way. We won't even have to cross the bridge."

"Then how-"

"We're going to go under it." This girl was insane.

"Under it? We're going to swim across the river? You're actually the weirdest person I've ever met."

"So you've said." A few twigs and leaves stuck wildly out of her golden locks. "I know a place where the water gets shallow enough that you can walk across over some exposed rock. Just roll up your pants."

They make their way through the rest of the small stretch of forest in relative silence, the prospect of maybe having to face the Key Bridge again weighing heavily in Killian's chest. He attempted to make sense of everything that was happening. The truck, the blowup, Emma's panic attack, it felt like it was too much, but at the same time, it felt like something. In that moment, he decided he would take something over the soul crushing nothing any day.

And then there was Emma Swan. Nothing about her made any sense, and yet everything about her felt familiar. He wanted to be with her constantly, wanted to hold her, crawl into her art, cocoon himself in her aura. At the same time she terrified him. He found himself wondering what had happened to her and why acted the way she did. Why pretend to be happy when it had become painfully obvious that she lived in a state of constant fear and anxiety? Why hide her sister's identity from everyone when it could greatly improve her quality of life? It was almost like she was actively torturing herself. Like every forced smile was a tribute to her wasted, difficult life that never had to be wasted or difficult in the first place.

He snuck a glance at his phone. 11:15. It had only been 30 minutes since he ran back into the mansion. Un-fucking-believable.

He had somehow managed to sneak up behind her. His nose was dangerously close to ear, so close that she could feel the shallow puffs of air tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. Emma turned slightly and searched his eyes. They were impossibly blue, so blue that flashed almost silver in the moonlight. He was naked under her gaze, but for the first time since Liam died, he felt truly seen.

"You know, the Jolly Roger can hit up to 100 miles per hour before it starts to float." He declared it like he was telling Mr. Gold that the main character of The Handmaid's Tale was named Offred. Like it was an indisputable fact.

"The Jolly Roger?"

"My truck."

"You named your truck the Jolly Roger? Didn't take you to have a Peter Pan fetish." Secretly, she actually thought the little pirate tribute was rather cute. Henry had always loved pirate ships too.

"There are a lot of things you don't know, Swan. Maybe once I get her back I'll crank her up to 101 and fly to Neverland." His voice dropped down to a whisper and fell an octave lower, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine.

"Nah. You shouldn't do that."

"And why is that?" She thought for a moment.

"There's no one else in first period AP lit that I could con into being my partner."

"Maybe I'll just take you with me." God, that smirk should be illegal.

"If this is about to be some weird sex joke where you pretend we're Peter and Wendy…"

"Oh please, love. I'd be Captain Hook." He smiled then, bringing back that twinge in her stomach, something that she only later recognized as the pangs of desire.

"For the best," she said as she inched a bit closer. "You couldn't handle it."

"Maybe it's you that couldn't handle it." His tongue popped at the end of the sentence, the final t sizzling through the air.

"Captain Hook, huh? Prove it. Show me how skilled you are in the water?"

The soft sound of moving water pulled him from their banter. Glancing past her shoulder, he saw a slow moving stream no more than 50 feet across, the two ends connected by a makeshift bridge of boulders and logs.

"Race you to the other side." Somehow she had already managed to strip off her socks and shoes as well as rolled up her leggings. In a blink, she was taking her first steps onto the first fallen tree. She was this marvelous graceful thing, a little joy of physics, a perfect balance between rebellion and obedience edging her way across the water. Killian allowed himself the luxury of just watching her for only a second before darting down the hill toward the water.

"A pirate never goes down without a proper fight, love." His heavy footsteps assaulted the frozen earth beneath him. The water was bound to be freezing, it was November in Maine after all. Without thinking, he jumped on the log kicked a large wave of water out towards Emma sending little liquid grenades into her hair and clothes. A playful shriek pierced through the tranquility of the dark forest as a full fledged war broke out.

More bombs flew through the air and landed in the battlefield in messy explosions. Determined not to lose the fight, Killian threw off his black shirt, the first casualty, as he plunged into the water. The frigid water reached his hips and for a second, he thought he had somehow been paralyzed from the waist down. Still perched on a rock, Emma, with a generous amount of water cupped her hand, waited with nervous anticipation as she readied herself for the next strike. Despite the crippling cold, he managed to move rather quickly. A sneaky hand grabbed at her ankle, dragging her off the safety of her rock fortress. Without warning, their skirmish settled and turned into a ball of sorts as they twirled in the lazy river. They had no music; they hummed. There was no reason for them to be dancing, except for the fact that it felt exceptionally right.

Time stretched and stilled and it wasn't until he noticed her blue tinged lips before he urged them both out of the water and onto a nearby log. They both fight the urge to speak, afraid that words would break whatever spell had settled between them. He knew if he tried to say anything he would end up thinking about Milah and feeling guilty. So he kept his mouth shut because he couldn't live with the idea of associating this unbridled happiness with any sense of guilt.

The Jolly Roger was hidden in a tiny grove behind a rather well maintained gardener's shack. Killian fishes his key fob out his pocket and hits the unlock button. She chirped a soft hello.

"Looks like she's in tip top shape, Captain," she threw him a bright smile and a small salute.

"The finest vessel in all the land," he replied playfully.

Neither of them moved made any attempt to move. Killian couldn't help but feel a pang of disappointment that their adventure was coming to an end. Hidden in the comfort of the secluded forest, he wasn't Killian Jones, star quarterback, and she wasn't Emma "foster freak" Swan. They didn't have to be anyone. The thought of having to go back and exist in those confining labels made him nauseous. He didn't know if he could see her as anything other than how he's seen her tonight, tragically broken in the strongest way possible. Her dissolution and her weaknesses were a testament to her strengths and in that moment, there was no one in the world more beautiful to him than Emma Swan.

"Well, I guess I should get going." Emma turned back toward the river as she stuffed her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt.

It took him a second to process before he reached out, laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. "No way I'm letting you walk home alone through the woods. Besides, you're soaked."

"It's completely fine. I run through these woods all the time."

"No. Fucking. Way. Get in the truck." She shifted uncomfortably on the balls of her feet. Her soaks squeezed cold water into the soles of her shoes, piercing the soles of her feet with thousands of tiny little daggers.

"We live by an estuary. You can't get back to my place from here without crossing the Key Bridge."

He felt like he was on fire. The Key Bridge. Mangled metal crunched on the Key Bridge. Engines exploded on the Key Bridge. Brothers died on the Key Bridge. There was no way he could go back.

Just when he thought that the heat as going to consume him, he was inexplicably hit with an inexplicable chill. His blood froze in his veins as images of Emma earlier breakdown filled his mind. He saw her lost in the woods, shaking and quivering as she fought for each breath. He saw the terror in her eyes and felt her bones under his palms. He saw her black skirt billowing in the breeze as the clock tower moved beneath her. He saw the life slowly drain from her body, leaving nothing but a skeleton lying in the cold November ground. He didn't have a choice.

"You're not walking home alone. Get in the car."

Killian always drove with all the windows down. His Ford barreled down the old country roads at dangerous speeds. Clutching the steering wheel tightly, he pushed the truck to 90 and kept her there, steady as she goes. Slowly, Emma slipped the upper half of her body out of the window. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend like she was flying. With arms outstretched, she let the wind whip violently at her blonde hair for a few moments. She wonders what would happen if she just let herself fall. What would it feel like when her body hit the pavement? She played with those thoughts momentarily, but while the thought of being dead seemed appealing, the actual act of dying did not, so she pulled her body back through the window and secured herself tightly with her seatbelt. With the window still rolled all the way down, she drank in the surroundings. The air was so crisp that she could snap it with her fingers in a flash of every lush shade imaginable offset by the autumnal flashes of red and yellow. She could smell the distant winter in the air, a mixture of night mist and the tang of fallen leaves. With a sigh, she decided that she did not mind losing the previous moment in the river, for this one was just as lovely.

The old truck stuttered to a stop. A dewy fog blurred the details of the metal rails on either side of the narrow bridge with its ragged veils, punctuated at various distances by the reddish glow of the street lights and bars of lights escaping from illuminated windows.

"We flipped over right over there." The rail was still dented. A sense of sadness filled the air with a salty, sea-like redolence. She waited for the proverbial shoe to drop, for him to push her out and drive back to his place via another route.

But that never happened. Instead, he inched himself across in a slow, deliberate crawl. Right around the halfway point, the engine roared to life and she felt like she was flying. The red needle sprinted past 70 mph, huffed and puffed until it hovered at 100. Tires screeched and screamed in protest as he brought the vehicle to a violent stop. Her body flew forward, inertia jerking her into the dashboard. He let out a single strangled chuckle and then they were soaring again.

In that moment, she felt as if she were paying for the privilege of being part of his healing with portions of her own life and sanity. But it was well worth it. Living dead girls couldn't feel pain anyway.

* * *

A/N: Sorry this is coming a day late! I was super swamped with a few dossiers for work. Please let me know what you guys think! Reviews/PMs really let me know what the viewership on this is and how everyone feels about it so far. They also really help me with figuring out if/how I should adjust my update schedule.


	5. Once We Had a Place We Thought Fair

**Chapter 5: Once We Had a Place We Thought Fair**

"Oh thank God you're alright!" Mary Margaret's shrill shriek caught Emma by surprise as she walked through the front door. The older woman surveyed her up and down with scrutiny taking in her damn clothes and wet hair. Her eyes narrowed in confusion at Emma's disheveled state and a strange anxiousness filled the air. Before she had a chance to explain, the sharp click of high heels echoed loudly through the room.

"We've been searching the entire city for the last hour! Where in the hell have you been?" Regina's presence was always less comforting than Mary Margaret's, but Emma had learned to appreciate and find solace in her bluntness. "Jesus Christ, what the fuck happened to you?" Any worry Regina was feeling had been cleverly masked by anger, a defense mechanism she picked up after years of having to protect Mary Margaret from their shit show of a family.

Emma suddenly felt protective of the memories from the last few hours. Those moments with Killian Jones was sacred and private and belonged to no one but him and her. She was afraid to speak them into existence in fear that they would somehow dissolve into the air the minute she set them free. Nervous fingers twisted inside the sleeve of her mud stained sweatshirt.

"I just went out for a run," she finally mustered noncommittally.

"You really expect me to believe that?" Regina snapped back ferociously. Emma shrugged, which only further fueled Regina's frustrated rant.

"I better go call David before he and Robin get too far," Mary Margaret managed to squeak out before retreating into the kitchen. Perhaps it was some strange subconscious link to now long repressed childhood memories, but she always struggled with the sound of yelling.

"Do you know what it's like to come home and find that your little sister has disappeared? The alarm system was deactivated, the lights were on, your phone was on the table, and the back door was swinging open. We thought something terrible happened. Shit Emma, for a second we thought you were dead." The slight tremor in her voice betrayed the stoic front she was putting on.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize you'd be so worried." Her attempt at sincerity fell flat as sarcasm colored her statement.

"Goddammit Emma of course we were worried!" Regina fought the urge to cry, whether it was in frustration or sadness she couldn't be completely sure. Emma was the baby sister she didn't save, the one she left behind, and a piece of her would always feel that immense pressure of guilt every time she saw her. Now, as everything started to converge, the date of the trial inching closer and closer, the feeling weighed just that much more heavily on her. If only she had realized that Leopold would never change. If only she had gone back earlier maybe she wouldn't have ended up with Malcolm and Fiona. If only… if only… if… if…

Studying Emma closely, she made note of the dark bags under her eyes, the protruding shoulder blades, and grey pallor. She didn't want to admit it, but maybe it was too late for "ifs."

"I'm fine. Really, Regina. It's okay." A weak smile danced across her face. "I just went out for a run to clear my head."

The two women stood in the middle of the expansive room in silence, neither really looking at the other, both lost in their own thoughts. Sounds of Mary Margaret's mellifluous voice filtered in from the adjacent room.

"Auntie Emma! You came back!" The pit pat of tiny footsteps rattled through the hall. Tiny arms locked protectively around Emma's stomach, a mess of brown hair nuzzled into her stomach.

"Of course I did silly goose!" Emma hoisted the small boy up and settled him securely on her hip. Either she was getting weaker or Roland was getting far too big for this she thought as he hid face in the crook of her neck.

"Let's go Rollie Pollie. It's way past your bedtime. I'll tuck you back in and read you a story." Still in that in between phase of toddler speak and real words, Roland excitedly mumbled a string of incoherent words into her hair.

Regina shot her a look over his head as if to say that the conversation wasn't over, but Emma made it a point to ignore her.

Per Roland's insistence, Emma slipped on blue pajamas (so we can match Auntie Em) and snuggled with him in his forest themed comforter. He arranged all of his stuffed animals in a circle before burrowing into his safe haven of plush blankets and pillows. Three pages into The Adventures of Robin Hood, he was fast asleep, tiny limbs wrapping themselves around her like a vine crawling up an oak tree. The smell of baby powder filled her nostrils.

In so many ways, Roland was just like Henry, full of that innocent happiness that made a cardboard box seem like the world's most impenetrable fort. At the same time, Roland had so much that Henry could never even dream of having. She curled himself around the boy protectively, just as she had done for Henry even though she knew that Roland would always have a home where he was safe, warm, and most importantly, loved.

Downstairs Regina, Mary Margaret, David, and Robin discussed "next steps" in urgent muffled voices. Emma didn't bother to even try and eavesdrop. It had been the same old story for a year now. Mary Margaret was worried/concerned/scared while David peppered her with reassurances that everything will be okay. Meanwhile Regina was probably chewing nervously at her lip and pacing up and down the narrow walkway between the kitchen and the living room, throwing out ideas like "group therapy" and "time off in a stress free environment."

Eventually the front door closed with a whoosh that pushed air through all of the windows. Robin bolted the door and tapped in the security code as Emma fell into a dreamless sleep with her head on a stuffed squirrel.

Sometime in the night a faint vibration sounded from the nightstand, filling the entire room with a soft blue glow.

 _Hey. Just wanted to let you know I just got home only to realize I left my bag (and the book you gave me) in your kitchen._

She squinted against the bright screen. 3:12 am. **It took you 3 hours to drive from my house to yours?**

Three blinking dots turned to text almost instantaneously. _Took a pitstop on my way home._

 **Hope you didn't go to Neverland without me.**

 _Wouldn't dream of it Swan._

 _What are you doing up anyway?_

 _Oh shit. Did my text wake you up._

 _Fuck they woke you up._

 _Sorry._

 _I'm making it worse, aren't I?_

The succession of buzzes sounded like a roar in the silence of the room. Emma glanced over to check on Roland who continued to snore quietly into her side.

 _Sorry Swan. I think I'm drunk._

She's not really sure why the thought of him drunk makes her so angry, but it does. A terse replies flies from her fingers in a sleepy haze.

 **Leave me alone and go to sleep Jones.**

Clicking the phone shut and shoving it under the pillow, Emma rolled over and snuggled deeper into Roland's tiny bed.

 _Can I come over and get my stuff tomorrow?_

 _I want to see you._

 _Please._

 _Swan._

 _You make the world feel like magic._

 _Emma._

 _Are you still there?_

 _Please don't leave me hanging here._

 **Fine. Tomorrow morning at 11**. The words were forced out by a presence so weak and new she didn't even know it was there.

Falling back into a restless sleep, thoughts of Killian Jones whirling through her mind as she struggled to distinguish between signs she received from the universe and those she conjured up in her head.

* * *

"Auntie Em it's raining and snowing at the same time!" Roland shouted excitedly in her ear somewhere between 6 and 7am.

There was probably only one or two more rains left before it would start to really snow. When she was younger, she called it the in-between rain, a weird mix of rain, sleet, and snow that smelled simply like ice, the cold air burning the tips of ears, cheeks, and eyelashes. It was a time for tying woolen scarves around noses and mouths- the moisture of rasping breaths stinging chapped lips. In-between rain was for hiding in quilts and blankets.

And that's exactly where Killian found Emma and Roland after making his way through the French doors.

After he pulled his car into the driveway (not the West Entrance this time), he slipped tapped in the security code that Emma had texted him earlier (after he apologized for blowing up her phone during his drunken rant). The whole sitting room had been transformed into a giant fort complete with a drawbridge made from a sturdy throw blanket. A mess blonde blob popped out of a grey fleece blanket. The motion reminded him of a prairie dog.

"Your bag is in the hall by the kitchen," she said with a vague gesture of her hand before retreating back into the plush fortress. A childish shriek that sounded something like "but the giant will eat him" rang out from behind the makeshift walls.

Memories of him and Liam raiding ships and saving princesses filled his mind. He thought back to forcing Liam to walk the plank and replacing his hand with a "hook" (he was pretty sure it was a piece off an old fishing rod) after a particularly gruesome battle with a knight from a far away land hoping to claim the kingdom's treasures as his own. The memories were so close that he could almost feel the edge of the cardboard sword under his fingers, but as soon as he tried to snatch them out of the fog of his mind, they became even more muddled. That was the problem with memories: you can visit them, but you can't live in them again.

He might not be able to relive his moments with Liam, he could sure as hell could try his best to recreate them.

"Oh my, lass! You wouldn't send me to perish at a giant's lair would you? I'm but a poor mercenary." For a moment he can't help but feel like he's making a mistake, intruding on an intimate moment of play not meant for him, but his doubts quickly dissolved as a soft giggle wafted gently from behind the yellow sheet.

"Can we trust him Auntie- I mean Princess?" Roland's attempts to whisper were thwarted by his eagerness.

"I don't know Sir Roland. I hear there are a lot of tricky pirates roaming these areas looking to steal jewels and gold." His lips unconsciously curled into a grin. She remembered.

"Maybe we can make a deal with him. We can give him something if he drives out the evil giant!"

"Make a deal with a pirate? I don't know Sir Roland… that sounds awfully risky."

"But Princess, we need to slay the giant in order to get the magic compass to save the king and queen! He's our only hope."

Killian listened to Roland, rapt. For such a young boy, he was a magnificent storyteller, quick and creative. A piece of him wanted to stop playing and just sit and listen, the same feeling he had when he looked at Emma's paintings, almost as if his presence would somehow sully its beauty.

"I trust whatever decision you make, Sir Roland." A shadow of an elegant curtsey dances playfully along the wall.

"You may enter, pirate." The declaration is firm yet innocently squeaky.

Entering the multicolored blanket fort was the very definition of entering a brand new realm. Although the air was warm and stuffy, Killian could almost convince himself he was breathing the salty sea air as he sailed off on the great adventure of defeating the evil giant. Strangely enough, everything within the confines of the soft walls felt more real than anything else from the past few months. The way she laughed soft feminine notes that suggested both vulnerability and strength, the feel of Roland's small body crashing into his during a fierce battle, the caress of the soft carpet and even softer pillows as he rolled around the floor trying to evade capture. All of that breathed a certain life into him that he didn't even know had previously perished.

At some point, he found himself engaged in a ferocious sword fight with the princess over the stolen compass (turns out that, according to Roland, he was indeed evil and was trying to steal the compass for himself all along so he could find a place where he could be young forever). Careful to avoid close contact, he moves only his arms, appeasing an excited Roland with dramatic arm swings. Somehow, despite his caution, she ends up on her back on the floor, and he gets lost in the moment.

"Normally, I'd prefer to do more enjoyably activities with a woman on her back. Bit of advice, when I jab you with my sword, you'll feel it." He noticed the tensing of her body almost immediately, could feel the rhythm of her breathing transform into staccato gasps and instantly regrets his statement. She pulled herself up almost immediately.

"Hey Rollie Pollie? Can I call a timeout for just a second. I need to get something to drink." Her hand shook ever so slightly as she pulled a purple curtain out of the way. Seconds later, the sound of running water filled the room. The enchantment that had settled on the room had been broken, almost as if all the color had drained from the room and left nothing but a stale black and white substitute in its place.

"Hey Killian?" Roland's soft voice cuts through the oppressive pall like a ray of sunlight. "I like you."

"I think you're pretty awesome too, lad. A few more practices and you'll be a better swordsman than I am!" He watched as the younger boy toyed around with a loose brown strands that fell messily in front of his eyes.

"I guess the sword thing is fun, but I really just like that you make Auntie Em laugh and smile a lot. She doesn't usually like to smile unless we're playing castles or when she's reading me a story. Even then it's sort of not real. She almost never really laughs anymore. She usually just fake laughs and pretends now."

"What do you think makes Em- I mean your Auntie Em so sad?" He leaned in closely, almost as if he was a child sneaking a peek at something he wasn't supposed to see. It felt like opening Pandora's Box of sorts, like he was tapping into a chest of dark secrets.

"My daddy says it's because of something that happened a long time ago before she came to live with us," he shrugged, the stuffed monkey he had been tossing back and forth tumbling out of his hands. "I don't really know. No one tells me stuff."

"Want to know a secret?" Killian watched the younger boy perk up as he nodded furiously. "I really like it when your Auntie Em smiles too. It makes me smile."

"You should come over and play more often. She's been even sadder than usual lately. If you come to play we can both see her smile and be more happier."

"Yeah, I'd like that Roland." He's rewarded with a toothy grin and he can't help but feel a sense of satisfaction despite the disastrous turn the morning had taken.

"Sorry about that. Dehydration is no joke." And just like that she was back to her normal, seemingly carefree self. "Where did we leave off?"

"The kingdom was saved and the Princess awarded the knight with an ice cream cone from Ingrid's!" Roland announced excitedly.

"Whoa there! I feel like we skipped some chapters," she said with a chuckle. Emma glanced out of the window, making note of the torrential downpour. "Sorry buddy, there's no way we're going to make it to Ingrid's in this storm. Not unless you're prepared to swim there. Maybe we can wait until your mom and dad get back and we can go later after dinner."

"I can drive." Killian cut in just a tad too enthusiastically. "You know, as an apology for trying to deceive the beautiful princess and her gallant knight." Attempting to hide his eagerness, he threw in a dramatic bow.

Roland let out an excited cheer before sprinting up the stairs to grab his shoes.

"I couldn't ask you to drive us to the ice cream shop in this weather."

"You didn't. I offered."

"You know what I mean. You don't have to take us anywhere."

"Lad's already gone up to get ready. We wouldn't want to disappoint him." Emma shot him an uneasy glance. She may not have any qualms about flying down the road at 100 mph, but she would never risk endangering Roland's life. Before she could even make her case, he cuts her off. "I'll even promise to go the speed limit."

Roland launched himself rather ungracefully at Killian's legs as he grasped onto his hand, pulling him through the door. "Come on Killy let's go!"

The drive to Ingrid's was actually longer than the walk. Changes in city planning had resulted in a series of roads being turned into one way streets (something about safer turns and cutting down on traffic during rush hour), so a 15 minute walk turned into a 20 minute car ride. Emma was for once grateful for Roland's gregarious nature as he babbled nonsensically about the merits of rocky road over s'mores and his eternal struggle of having to choose between mint chip and cookie dough. The truck had changed overnight. Her nose wrinkled subconsciously as the remnants of cigarette smoke and the faint smell of stale beer hung heavily in the air. The discarded Trojan condom wrappers tossed onto the dashboard reflecting off the windshield was just the icing on the cake. Everything about it made her skin crawl. She expected the feeling of unease and dread. What she hadn't expected was the strange pang in her chest. What felt like an eternity later, Emma felt the truck slow to a stop as Killian eased carefully into the parking spot closest to the door.

"Race you to the ice cream case!" Roland shouted as he bolted toward the white steps leading up to the cornflower blue stilt house.

"Alright lad, which flavor did you finally decide on? Mint chip? Cookie dough? Birthday cake?"

Roland pondered the question seriously before turning to Killian. "What are you getting?"

"I've always been partial to rum raisin." Emma snorted at his answer. Of course the pirate lover was also a fan of something rum related.

"That's an old person flavor," Roland exclaimed in disgust.

"I guess that makes me absolutely ancient then." Roland makes a face before deciding that he was going with mint chip this time. "What about you Swan? What can I get you?"

"I'm not really an ice cream person," she said as she shrugged nonchalantly. He thought back to the forgotten salad that was left on her plate last night. Spinning through the rolodex of his memory, he realized that he's never actually seen her eat. Something about that made him nervous, but he knew better than to comment on it, deciding instead to keep the conversation light.

"Come on Swan. No one can be happy without the occasional ice cream cone!"

"I guess that explains why I'm so incredibly miserable deep down inside." Although she meant it as a joke, something about the way she said it told him that it wasn't completely devoid of truth. Despite his hesitance, he continued to ensure that he was keeping everything as light as possible.

"You and Liam are similar in that way. Both of you hate ice cream and not surprisingly you both are miserable gits." He had spoken his brother's name aloud more times in the past two days with Emma than he had in the past few months combined. It was strange to refer to him in the present tense again, but at the same time it was amazingly therapeutic. He watched a slow, tentative smile spread across her face. That's when he saw it, finally realized that Roland was saying. This one was real. It was a shy little thing, but it made her eyes twinkle. It was so beautiful that it hurt, a painful throbbing sensation settling in his chest as he attempted to take it in.

Two ice cream cones, a few sticky fingers, and an extra peanut butter chunk milkshake to go at the last minute, the trio was once again sprinting through nature's dangerous assault, the wind picking up as sharp pellets of rain shot from the darkening sky. Getting back to the estate on the estuary proved to be a greater challenge than they had previously anticipated. Flash flooding closed off a handful of major roads, the city's underdeveloped drainage system unable to handle the heavy deluge. After the second detour route took them to once again another detour route, Killian decided to pull out his phone, punching in the address to the Mills-Locksley residence.

"Continue on Aurora Lane for 1.3 miles then take a slight left to merge onto I-679, Key Bridge." The robotic voice of the woman on the GPS was almost taunting him with those last two words. Key. Fucking. Bridge.

"In 800 feet, merge onto I-679 Key Bridge." Roland's animated babbles were muffled by the roaring in his ears. His grip on the steering wheel tightened as his foot hovers over the gas pedal. He could just blow through the bridge. Close his eyes, floor it, and fly across. Childlike giggles filled the air, chasing away the debauchery that had taken place in that truck not even twelve hours earlier. Ghosts and demons dare not enter here now. Something warm brought him back. Looking down, he saw Emma's hand lightly pressed on top of his on the steering wheel. Slim fingers tapped atop of his own in a steady, soothing rhythm.

"It's okay." There was that smile again. That, along with those two, almost imperceptible words, eased the pressure off his chest and just like that he felt like he was breathing again for the first time in a long time.

The Jolly sloshed slowly through the deep water, skidding and stopping as the wheels struggled to stick to the ground below. Dented rails, flipped cars, blazing fires, and blood on pavement flashed through his eyes like a movie on fast forward, but surprisingly the images disappeared as quickly as they came. He wasn't burning. He wasn't trapped. He was sitting in his truck, drinking a milkshake, and unbeknownst to him, gradually falling for Emma Swan.

Roland is exhausted by the time they make it back to the house. Crawling into a corner of now semi-collapsed fort, he found a lavish area for a quick afternoon nap. Killian reluctantly grabbed his black bag from the hallway and shuffled slowly to the door, turning the knob at an almost comically slow speed before stopping abruptly.

"Let's go out for a walk."

"It's pouring outside."

"I have an umbrella in the car."

"You also have a girlfriend." It was said with no hint of shrewdness, no accusations.

"Would you judge me if I said I wish I didn't?" He asked, the question laced in shame and guilt.

"I'm always a judge free zone."

"I know you are. That's what I appreciate about you." He waited a moment, gauging her reaction before he finally asked. "Do you think I could stay and read a bit. It's hard for me to get work done at my place."

"Sure, you can chill in my makeshift art room upstairs."

Falling for Emma Swan was like falling asleep, gradual but then all at once.

* * *

A/N: This is definitely a transition chapter for some of the action that's to come. Get ready for some full on angst in the next few installments. As always, please let me know what you think! Reviews give me so much life 3


	6. We Cannot Go There Now, My Dear

**Chapter 6: We Cannot Go There Now, My Dear**

"All the world is faith, and trust, and-"

"Pixie Dust!" Roland's shrill voice rang out in contrast to Killian's melodious tone. Emma stilled her staccato strokes on the now completely black canvass. Despite the treacherous weather that continued to rage on outside, her art studio felt inexplicably warm. It was a type of warmth she hadn't experienced in a long time, and although she loved it, she feared it just the same. Nothing good stays good.

"Last I checked, Peter Pan was not the book we're supposed to be doing our project on." She couldn't help but smile at the boyish grin he shot her over the mop of curls that sat messily on Roland's head. How much was his happiness worth to her? In that moment, she decided it was priceless.

"It's impossible to say no to this boy, Swan."

"Oh, don't I know it." Tiny fingers fumbled with the heavy embossed pages as Roland eagerly searched for his favorite parts. "Fortunately, I've done enough babysitting that I am impervious to all of his tricks now," she said, shooting the toddler a pointed look. "And I know that you should be in bed."

"I'm not tired Auntie Em! Can't I stay up until Gina and dad come home?" His lower lip jutted out as he stared up at her with wide, pitiful looking brown eyes.

"It's already way past your bedtime buddy," she sighed, lifting him out of Killian's lap. "Plus, your dad just texted and said they wouldn't be back until early tomorrow morning because of the storm." He bounced and wiggled impatiently before letting out a huff of frustration. His small body pulled taut, and Emma could feel the nascent stages of a tantrum beginning to brew. Almost as he if could sense the strain that was starting to pull on Emma, Killian stood quickly and plucked the small boy out of her arms.

"No need to pout lad. We'll finish our story and you can give me a tour of your room." Emma gave him a curious look as she loosens her hold on Roland. Before she had a chance to protest, the two boys were already half way down the hall.

She didn't know what to make of the last few days. It was everything she had wanted. At the same time, it was nothing she was ready for. Killian Jones was meant to be her perfect distraction, a damaged piece of art in need of restoration. Yes, she had wanted to help him, reignite the ember in his eyes that had been long extinguished, but she never planned for him to get to close, to worm himself into her very being the way he had in such a short amount of time. She could already feel her walls of ice beginning to melt away, exposing all that was dark and disturbing.

It was too much, too fast.

It was not enough.

Turning back to study her dark canvas, she couldn't help but think about Graham. Sweet, kind, and beautiful Graham. She remembered the way he poked and prodded, coaxed and cajoled until one day he had managed to fit a piece of himself into that fucked up thing she called a heart. At the time, she was fractured at best, but he lived contentedly in their dysfunction, subsisting off of the meager scraps of affection, the only thing she could give him. He loved her completely and innocently in the way only a person who had never experienced hardship could. It all came from this longing to have something to protect, and perhaps for a moment she had been comforted in that promise of stability and protection. She might have even really loved him at some point, but maybe she was just so lonely and hopeless that she might have fallen in love with the first thing that showed her a hint of kindness and safety.

At the end, everyone was right. She wasn't worth what Graham had sacrificed for her. Probably never would be. Yanking open her backpack, she emptied out the largest compartment onto the floor before her hands dove into the smallest pocket hidden in the inside flap. The soft shoelace sat heavily in the palm of her hand.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?" She jumped at the sound of his voice. Had she said those words out loud?

"Nothing," she said hastily as she shoved the worn lace back into her bag. "He out?"

"Like a light."

"Uh… thanks Killian. For... everything." Everything. Indeed, everything. She shifted nervously on the balls of her feet. He was giving her that expectant look, the one that begged and implored for something that she knew she could not offer.

He ran a hand through his dark hair. "I feel like I should be thanking you. Not only are you going to get me that A in English but you've also feeding me. A guy could get used to this kind of first class treatment." The grin that broke out on his face easing the tension that was beginning to build. Banter was safe.

"For the last time, I said nothing about getting you an A," she quipped as she turned back to her painting with a small smirk. The silver flecks flew from her brush, the outline of a wolf beginning to take place.

Settling back into his spot on the white couch, Killian propped open the worn copy of The Handmaid's Tale, careful not to disturb the rainbow of tabs and sticky notes that lined the sides and adorned the pages. "Do you mind if I stayed just a bit longer? The rain is coming down pretty hard, and I'm still struggling through this book."

"Sure. Stay as long as you'd like." The soft sounds of paint being mixed blended seamlessly into the crunch of flipping pages, creating some type of strange music. The lowlight of the two standing lamps cast a gentle, buttery glow. It was the color of her hair. It was the color that her smile, her real smile, made. And if Killian Jones didn't know better, he would have said it was the color that was beginning to fill that void in his chest.

* * *

If he was being completely honest with himself, he wasn't really reading the book. Really, he was spending most of his time reading Emma's notes about the book. Her voice rang out in his head as she explained Offred's implicit passiveness, the manipulation of language and "truth," and the role of women in perpetuating the traditions of Gilead's patriarchy. He listened to her pointed description of women's violence against other women and what she believed to be the true nature behind sexual violence.

 _Power._

The single word stood out starkly against the fluorescent pink post it note. It echoed in his ears and sent cold jolts up his spine. Finding it too overwhelming, he quickly flipped to the next page, hoping to escape what he now believed to be one of the most soul crushing words in the English language.

 _It's easiest to blame others when we know that the real blame is on ourselves._ In some weird way, he knew that she wasn't referring to the character's in the book anymore.

 _How wondrous it must be to simply float away. Refer back to page 56 for foreshadowing._

 _Perhaps she was lucky in her death… adding a note to look back at this moment later._

 _Pain and suffering did not age her, rather it kept her stagnant, stuck in a state of outrage that was not conducive to progress._

 _She could spend a lifetime apologizing and it still wouldn't be enough._

He didn't know where her thoughts of events in the book ended and when her own meandering musings began, and in this sense, he couldn't help but feel like he was getting a glimpse of something he wasn't supposed to. Glancing up, he watched as nimble hands expertly danced behind the wide easel. Somewhere deep down inside, he knew that the fact that she was standing there, painting and humming, was a miracle unto itself.

"The book is not written on my face, Jones," she chastised without looking up.

"Yes, but the contents of your face are much more pleasing than the contents of this book."

"Do I need to get the hose?"

"That won't be necessary, love, but another slice of lasagna would do a man wonders." He moved across the room and stood a few inches behind her while he surveyed her newest painting, careful to leave a small space between them. A wolf's cerulean eyes stared at him.

She felt him hovering behind her, so close that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, she waited for the usual waves of nausea and anxiety to engulf her. It was an old pattern, an almost biological reaction to any type of proximity that had plagued her since leaving Fiona and Malcolm's. The day she was finally brought out of the house was marked by the permanent dimming of her world, and since then shadows seemed blacker, as if something more lingered in those darkened the last year, she had somehow managed to control it around Regina and Mary Margaret, but even Robin and Dave were not immune. Deep breaths seemed to reverberate around the silent room. She kept waiting, but the sense of entrapment never came. Instead, she was filled with what felt like an insatiable desire to be touched. Almost subconsciously, she leaned back, searching for something firm, something warm. The scrape of his belt against her back was her anchor. He stood, steady and patient, all chiaroscuro-like as the light behind him framed his chiseled face. With one final sigh, her whole body sagged against his.

Killian's heart pounded wildly in his chest. Watching as her lithe body move until it was flush against his made every inch of him burn, but unlike all the other times when he tried his best to escape the sensation this time he welcomed it. The scent of roses and rainwater and something citrus filled the air around him while a dull roaring throbbed in his ear, drowning out everything except for the feel of her back against his chest. Afraid she'd pull away before he was ready to let her go, he gently wrapped his arms around her midsection, resting his wrists on her delicate hip bones. He had held girls before, hell, he'd even fucked a few of them, but nothing was more sensual than feeling her soft breaths against him. God, he needed to touch her.

"It's beautiful, Swan." She was pressed so closely against him that she could feel the deep rumble coming from within his chest.

"Thanks. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be yet, but I think I'm going to name it 'The Huntsman." After Graham, she silently added in her head.

His reply was nothing more than a noncommittal hum, but she felt his fingers tighten around her. The air was too thick, too tight between their bodies, but for once it did not scare her. Running a finger along the inside of his wrist, she felt him swallow hard as she continued to trace little patterns back and forth, a sailboat, an anchor, a pirate's flag.

"Did you want me to heat up some food for you?" She asked in the midst of her absentminded drawing.

Shaking his head against her, he laid his cheek on her soft blonde hair. It caressed his face like a floral scented wind. Every tiny little sigh, every movement, every slight shift sent his mind deeper into some strange, seemingly endless abyss. He needed it, desperate to touch her. Her jeans and thick sweater left nothing exposed, not even a whisper of skin, but if he focused hard enough he could have sworn that he could feel her soft warmth. Nothing with Milah had ever felt like so viscerally pure. She was like a fallen angel, some heavenly being whose wings had been ripped from her back, forced to spend the rest of her eternity wandering the hallowed halls of this dark world.

He was silent for long enough that she lifted her head to scan his face, but before she could turn fully around, he held onto her even tighter. The abrupt movement shocked her at first.

"Just a moment longer, Swan." She settled back into his embrace without a word.

Looking back, neither of them could remember how long they actually stood there for. It could've been seconds, but maybe it was hours.

"Have you ever been in love?" Emma's asked, her voice cutting through the crisp silence.

His first instinct was to say yes. Of course he'd been in love. He was in love with Milah. Wasn't he? He knew what he should say, but when he went to release the words trapped in his throat, they vanished.

"I don't know," he managed to rasp. "I feel like I should have at some point. Been in love, that is. There are times when I think I don't even know what love is. I mean, I know I love my dad and I love Liam, but that's different from being in love. Does that make sense? I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I should love someone because that's the right thing to do, but then I can't help but think that no one deserves to be loved just out of obligation." He paused for a few beats before asking. "What about you, Swan? Have you ever been in love?"

Emma thought about Graham, thought about how she had wanted to love him so badly. Thought about how if anyone in the world had deserved it, it was him.

"No." She finally said with a sigh. "I don't think I have."

"What are you thinking about?" He asked, watching as she fixed her gaze on the half finished painting in front of him.

"I'm thinking about how easy it would be for someone to love you. I'm thinking about how it would be even easier for someone to be your friend," she replied.

"I'm not sure why would you think that. I'm a regular scoundrel. You'd cringe if you knew about all the shitty things I've done. I'm a regular Jack Sparrow." His attempt to make his admission of guilt light was betrayed by his sorrowful tone.

"Aside from stealing the answers to the chemistry final last year, starting those terrible rumors about August's "stiff one," vandalizing Gold's classroom after he failed your last paper, and being the first to refer to me as "foster freak Swan" are there any big ones I should know about?" She rattled the list off so simply and casually that it felt more like she was telling him what she was going to buy at the grocery store as opposed to listing off some of his most shameful actions. The last one made him sick to his stomach. His body stiffened above hers before he jerked her around into a frantic hug.

"I'm really sorry. I'm so fucking sorry." He was such an asshole to her. Why had he been such an asshole to her? Popularity was teenage heroin and goddamn he had done anything and everything to get his fix.

"It's okay," she replied with a small squeeze. "I'm over it. Plus, it's not the worse someone has called me, not by a long shot."

It didn't make it okay. It didn't make anything he did okay. God, he did so much just to keep his popularity title. How many people had he hurt? How many people felt less because of him? How many more people are dead because he was addicted to fake adoration? His heart pounded so hard in his chest that he could have sworn that Emma could feel it beating against her cheek.

Liam was dead because of him.

Liam died because he wanted to be popular.

The realization crushed him.

"Would you still think I was such a good person if I told you that I'm the one who killed my brother?" The hollowness in his voice sent a chill through the room.

"What?" She asked incredulously.

"I killed my own brother."

"A car accident killed Liam."

"He was in the car because of me." She searched his eyes curiously. "I wanted to make sure I started this year off with a bang, so I went and got drunk at Arthur's. I couldn't drive so I called Liam to pick me up. We were arguing, screaming at each other because he was so pissed that I went out on the first day of school. He was in the middle of giving me some lecture about academics and taking life seriously when we skid off the road into guard rail." The gentle thud of his knees hitting the ground sounded explosive in his ear. Atlas had finally been brought down by the weight of the world. Searching for something to keep him afloat, he wrapped his arms desperately around Emma's knees. Silent sobs left wet trails on the loose, white washed denim.

"It wasn't your fault that-"

"If I hadn't gone out, none of this would have happened."

"You can play with that word 'if' for the rest of your life Killian. If you hadn't gone out, Liam wouldn't have been in the car. If it hadn't rained there wouldn't have been a slick patch on the ground. If Arthur hadn't thrown a party than you wouldn't have gone. If school had started on a Tuesday instead of a Monday. The possibilities are infinite."

The concept of "if" was something she was intimately acquainted with. It was the song of the birds in the spring and the call of the wind through bare branches on a cold winter afternoon. If. Both a type of anguish and solace, an escort and a cage. See hated it as if she loved it—unforgivingly, irrationally, sadly. If she hadn't told Henry to stay home from school, he wouldn't have broken that vase. If she had just tried a little harder, hid it a little better, Graham would still be here. If she had done what she was supposed to. If she had just been a little less selfish. There were so many if's. She was a prisoner of "if," already trapped by its sinister ways. She would make sure that he escaped.

She lowered herself slowly until she was eye level with him. Cupping his face in her hands, she lost herself in his sorrowful blue eyes. "It's not your fault. It's a shitty thing that happened. Could it have been avoided? Yes, of course. Everything effect has a cause, but was it completely your doing? No. 100% no."

He tried to contain a choked sob, but it had somehow managed to crunch past his strained vocal chords.

"I just want a little more time," he whispered through his gasping cries.

"You always will."

"It's not fair."

"It never is."

Killian examined the wet spots on her jeans, peering at the intricate stains. "I'm sorry about your jeans."

"Are you kidding? I own the tears of the Killian Jones. These jeans are worth my weight in gold now." He went still as she took one of his hands into her own. His fingers tightened around her and she looked up. He was smiling.

"How do you do it, Emma Swan?" He looked so unlike himself, so unlike the big bad Killian Jones that terrorized the halls of Storybrooke High with his nefarious crew. "How do you keep it together?"

"I don't." She answered truthfully. "I fake it until it starts to feel real."

"How will I know when it starts to feel real again?"

"I'll let you know when it happens." His gaze settled on her slim fingers, as if were easier to face than the sad look in her eyes, afraid that whatever was on her face was mirrored on his own. But in that moment, he didn't mind being in the shadows of sorrow, so long as she was there with him. He didn't understand it then, but he somehow knew that she would fight for him when no one else would, even himself.

"Will you pretend with me for a while?" Killian asked, his voice still raw.

"Of course."

"Even if it means sometimes I'm an ass?

"Even then." He stared up at her, breathless, while she smiled. The smile the world would likely never see, the smile she protected so fiercely. He tried to blink away the burning.

Before he could stop it, he was leaning in, brushing his mouth against her lips, closing his eyes at the whisper of a kiss, at the hunger that ravaged him in its wake. The feel of her own lips against his was a pleasant surprise as he lunged forward. She assaulted his senses, so much so that he didn't realize that he had somehow managed to smear tracks of silver paint into her hair as he moved to grip the back of her skull. Splatters of midnight blue and copper painted the color of his jackets as her arms found their way around his neck.

"That was…" He panted breathlessly.

"A one time thing," she finished softly.

* * *

A/N: Sorry for the delay! I was getting over a pretty nasty cold toward the end of the week, so this chapter is a bit shorter than the others. Please let me know what you think!


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